The Churchill county standard. (Fallon, Nev.) 1908-1920, 1914-05-27
A POTASH DEPOSITS SEARCH
The Search For Potash Carried
On Near Here Will Be Con-
tinued In This Basin.

yey is planning to continue explora-
tory drilling for potash in the West
during the coming season and will
probably have the work done by con-
tract if favorable bids can be OBJ
tanned.
Among other plans for the potash
search for this year, the Survey ex-
poets to sink one or more deep wells
in the Black Rock Desert, Nevada.
Interest in the search for potash in
in the desert basin is by no means
on the wane Besides the deep well
bored by the Geological Survey in
the Carson Desert several deep wells
have been drilled by private interests
during the last year, including some
rather extensive work in Railroad
Valley, Nevada, and several borings,
some of which are thousand feet
deep, in Death Valley and Panamint
Valley. California. Besides these a
considerable amount of shallow drill
ing has also been done. OF all the
localities explored the deposit at
Searles Lake, California, seems to
afford the most immediate promise
of potash developments. However,
the importance of this one example
as type of the deposit for which
this search was instituted is sufiici
ent to stimulate a continued inyesti-
cation in the other basins.
The site proposed for further
work by the Geological Survey lies
in the sink" or low part of the
Black Rock Desert, which was one CT
the principal arms of the prehistoric
Lake Lahon'an. Tho hypothesis up
on which this work is based is the
same as that discussed at the time of
the drilling in the Carson Desert.
The lakes that occupied these desert
valleys were the recipients of all the
natural salts contained in their trib-
utary drainage waters. In certain of
these basins, as Great Salt Lake,
Owens Lake and Searles Lake, are
known to have been concentrated
immense bodies of saline and aka
line salts by this process of eyapora-
ton. In other basins, however,
where the water bodies have since
dried up, the salts have also disap-
peared and ii is presumed that they
must be buried under the surface of
the desert deposits. The first test
made in the Carson desert was in
conclusive so far as the discovery of
any salt deposits is concerned. The
site selected seems TO have been sit
uated too far from the center of the
basin and only alluvial or river delta
deposits we're encountered in the
drilling. II there is any record of a
former desiccation period or of sa-
line concentration in the drill log ii
has not as yet been recognized. As
the central part of the Carson Des-
ert, or so-ealled sink, is a site diff
cult of access for drilling operations,
being nearly always covered with
water and a fill of soft deep mud, it
seems best to select site for a fur
ther test of this hypothesis at some
place where the central part of the
main sink is more accessible.
Such an area seems to be affoded
in the Black Rock desert. 1t is the
center or low part of an immense
arm or portion of the former lake
Lahontan. Its present surface is
bare, fiat mud playa, occasionally
submerged with water as a result of
storms but during the summer
season generally dry and hard. Its
surface lies at practically the same
elevation as the Carson sink. 1t
was therefore submerged to the
same depth as the Carson sink dur
ing the lake period, the evidence OF
which is to be found in the surround
ing high beaches, shore terraces, etc.
As the water level in old Lake La
hontan began to lower, the basin as
whole became divided into various
subordinate basins and ultimately
each of these subdivided by evapora-
tion into a concentration area in its
lower part. The Black Rock desert
constitutes one of the largest OF
these concentration areas and In
this respect is very fairly compar-
able with the Carson Sink. As the
Black Rock desert no longer has an
active or persistent water supply 1t
does not contain any permanent
body of water and is not as likely to
have been filled by alluvial or delta
deposits. This very factor may be
more favorable to the occurrence
within 1t of well-defined saline de-
posit,