Over the eons, the sea was cut off from the ocean and slowly dried out, which resulted in evaporite mineral deposits being laid down in beds many hundreds of feet thick in what is now the Permian Basin of New Mexico and Texas. The mined potassium salts KCl are used in agriculture as fertilizer. The ore zones are interbedded with thick halite NaCl deposits, more commonly known as table salt. The salt is a gangue mineral non-commercial ore-associated mineral and must be separated from the potash during refinement.
Fortunately for mineral collectors, very rare beautiful blue and purple halite crystals have also been found interbedded with the potash ore in these mines in New Mexico. The blue color in the salt, long the subject of speculation and disagreement, is now thought to be the result of the radioactive decay of the potassium K isotope of potassium present in the potash ore.
The material is almost always a mineral known as Sylvite, a potassium chloride rock that occurs in dry, evaporite crystallization through evaporation areas deep underground. When extracting this mineral from Earth, countless Blue Halite crystals are found and sadly abandoned or dissolved. All Halites are water-soluble and are usually disintegrated by the time they reach the surface. Blue Halite emits energies capable of unlocking your third eye chakra.
The vibrations imbue the mind and will give you a better understanding of your place in this vast universe. During this experience, one may go through a trans-dimensional occurrence; a moment when your soul elevates to higher planes of reality. Also known as astral projection, one is able to traverse through time and space to reveal higher forms of knowledge. This information may be given through symbolic imagery, past-life recall, angelic communication, and eventual access to The Akashic Records a realm containing knowledge of every aspect of the universe; past, present, and future.
A review article by Sonnenfeld summarised the state of the art of the colour of rock salt. He pointed out factors responsible for the blue colour of halite crystals such as irradiation, soaking in sodium vapours, introducing impurities, inclusions of interstitial matter or structural defects in the crystal lattice. Blue halite occurs frequently in tectonically disturbed zones tectonites accompanied by sylvite veins Davidge and Pratt ; Sonnenfeld and is considered as mineralogical rarity.
They had attributed the blue colouration of natural salt to the bombardment of gamma-ray from the potassium present in sylvite, which accompanied the halite bed. The development of the Polish Zechstein Basin as the eastern part of the extensive Central European Basin was strongly controlled by faults that penetrate pre-Permian basement Ziegler In the main depocentral axis of the Polish Basin, called the Mid-Polish Trough MPT , the thickness of Permian sediments was completed with full development of the Zechstein evaporitic basin.
These sediments were covered by thick Mesozoic and Quaternary beds. The geological features of MPT including tectonics, lithostratigraphy, correlation between tectonics of the basement and the development of MPT were described by numerous authors e. Marek and Znosko a , b ; Wagner ; Dadlez et al. The Zechstein Basin was filled mostly with evaporites which are about 1, m thick Wagner The lithostratigraphic classification of the basin sediments is based on evaporite sedimentary cycles.
Four cyclothems were distinguished in the sediments. The cyclothems followed transgressive—regressive cycles of the Zechstein Sea. These subcyclothems were formed as a result of cyclic climatic changes Wagner ; Pokorski and Wagner and showed terrigenous—evaporite sequences. These evaporites were covered by younger sedimentary rocks up to 8, m thick. The cover and active basement tectonics caused the development of numerous salt-bed structures, most of them associated with the MPT region Krzywiec a , a , b ; Ollier and Koziar Various aspects of the salt tectonics, such as the development of salts domes in relation to sub-Zechstein basement activity and the influence of the upraising salt structures on surrounding sediments, were analysed by many authors including recent papers by Krzywiec a , b , a , b and references cited therein.
Garlicki and Szybist Studies of the diapir structure Charysz and references cited therein; Burliga et al. The cross-section of the upper part of the diapir, shown in Fig. The diapir, surrounded by deformed Mesozoic Triassic—Jurassic and partly Tertiary deposits, is covered by Tertiary and Quaternary sediments Garlicki and Szybist In the case of the Older Halite Na2 , high purity of the rock salt and its common occurrence resulted in extensive exploitation of the deposit.
The salts of PZ3—PZ4 cyclothems contain impurities, such as the laminae of anhydrite and the intercalations of K—Mg minerals. In the lithological profile of these cycles, the clayey salts zuber are also present Wagner Moreover, some kinds of pure salt such as lined salt part of Na3a—PZ3 and pink salt PZ4 have also been noticed Charysz ; Garlicki The complex is built of kieseritic carnallite.
Szybist : 1 Older Halite, 2 Older Potassium Salt, 3 Grey Salt Clay and Main Anhydrite, 4 Younger Halite, 5 younger potassium salt kieseritic carnallite , 6 carnallite-bearing association, 7 younger salts association, 8 Brown Zuber and clayey salts, 9 youngest halite pink , 10 Red Zuber with clayey salts, 11 Triassic formation, 12 Jurassic formation, 13 Tertiary formation, 14 Quaternary formation. The deformation effects, such as piercing of Older Halite Na2 through Younger and Youngest Halite, tectonic tailing out and an occurrence of narrow folds with high amplitude, resulted from the various rheological properties of the rocks.
The anticlines are separated by a deep central syncline composed of the youngest salt layers. The blue halite outcrops are localised in KS39 chamber on the level m and in the ventilating gallery between chambers KS39 and KS38 on the level m. Both outcrops are situated within the Older Halite Na2. Another small outcrop was documented within the lower part of the Younger Halite Na3a on the level m. Substantial outcrop of blue halite was also found on the mining level m near intersection of GTP2 and GTP2a galleries.
In contrast to the associations mentioned above, in this outcrop, blue halite is accompanied by epigenetic carnallite. The coloured halite was recognised on all mining levels e. The blue-halite aggregates in the deposit were differentiated with respect to their size and the intensity of the hue. Contacts between the aggregates and surrounding sediments as well as the associations of accompanying minerals were diversified. The specimens for our studies were sampled from KS39 chamber on the level m , from the ventilating gallery between chambers KS39 and KS38 on the level m —the blue halite outcrops were accompanied by KCl veins—and from the level m where they are accompanied by the epigenetic carnallite.
It was found that intensive blue or even navy blue colour was characteristic for relatively big halite single crystals 2—6 cm in size Fig.
These crystals were mostly either euhedral or subhedral with clearly visible cleavage. In macroscopic observations, they displayed zones of dark blue hue or light blue hue alternate with colourless zones Fig. Small crystals were usually either anhedral or subhedral. Their linear size ranged from 2 mm to about 2 cm but crystals above 5 mm predominated. The hue of these crystals was also diverse and changed from blue or light blue to light purple.
Diversity of colour in single crystals was observed under stereoscopic microscope Fig. Comparing Fig. Blue and purple samples of halite were characterised by reflection and absorption UV—vis spectra registered in the range of — nm using Schimadzu PC spectrophotometer equipped with ISR device.
Additionally, absorption spectra on small areas 0. Thick sections were prepared by cracking the selected single crystal along cleavage planes. The system was operated at 15 kV accelerating voltage under high vacuum.
Single-crystal X-ray diffraction was performed for a set of crystals representing all types of observed halite hue: navy blue, pale blue, purple and natural colourless. Borders between single crystal domains were clear. However, sometimes, the spaces between single crystals were filled with fine crystallites showing optical properties similar to anhydrite. In some fragments of halite crystals, an optical anisotropy was observed under polarising microscopy, and the typical examples are shown in Fig.
Optical anisotropy was also observed in thick sections 0. Observations under the transmitted-light microscope revealed that the blue halite contains many various solid-phase inclusions well separated from the halite matrix. The most frequent inclusions were those with the oval shape atypical for evaporates Fig.
These inclusions usually were birefringent except those of KCl. The size of the inclusions ranged from a few dozen micrometres to few millimetres. Smaller inclusions were almost spherical Fig.
It is worth noting that around solid inclusions in blue halite the radial colourless areas, of 0. Most of the mineral phases of the solid inclusions in dark blue halite were characterised by corrosion of their borders and changes in optical properties.
It is worth pointing out that X-ray single crystal diffractometry performed for the selected solid state inclusions from blue halite crystals led us to distinguish mineral phases such as sylvite, carnallite, othorhombic sulfur, quartz, anhydrite, polyhalite and pyrite Stadnicka and Zelek Additionally, in halite matrix, the trace amount of K, Mg and Cu 0.
Typical absorption spectra for navy blue A , pale blue B , purple C and natural colourless D halite are shown in Fig. In general, for navy blue samples, two distinct absorption bands were found, at and nm. The spectra for pale blue halite samples had the characteristic absorption band at nm, whereas the band at nm was typical for the purple samples.
At the high-energy side of the main broad band, a weak band at about nm has always been observed. These fragments, while exposed to sunlight, showed an immediate colour change, at first from amber to grey followed by the development of blue hue after a few years 1—5 storage at ambient pressure and temperature ca.
The similar band set Fig. Some examples of backscattered electron microscopy images of halite samples are presented in Fig.
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