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<br />-Brine/ie/d Subsidence at W~ndso ; Oetar~ <br />the hiiddlc Salts sagged into one or more under- <br />lying cavities. t\lore or Icss simultaneously, it may <br />be supposed, similar sagging took place into the <br />cavity or cavities in the bliddlc Salt. <br />The strata oC the Bass Island dolomite overlying <br />the Upper Salt ~verc initially thick enough to span <br />a cavity in the Upper Salt without appreciable de- <br />formation. Eventually, however, partings along <br />bedding planes must have opened, whereupon one <br />or more strata descended into the cavity, possibly <br />without disruption or notable bulking. As succes- <br />sive strata were detached from the roof and came <br />to lie on the floor of the cavity, the load on the <br />salt remnants at various deeper levels was increased <br />and mast have produced failure of some of the salt <br />pinnacles which provided support for the overlying <br />broken strata. Concurrently, solution w•as taking <br />place in the salt beds, owing to the fact that water <br />was being introduced through well No. 19, west of <br />the subsiding area, while brine was being pumped <br />from wells located east of i[. Both the increasing <br />load on salt remnants and their continued diminu- <br />tion by solution must have contributed to a <br />gradual increase in the settlement of the overlying <br />broken strata resting on them, and hence to an <br />increase in the height o.f the cavity spanned by <br />intact rock. There seems to be no way of determin- <br />ing the stage at which the vertical dimension of this <br />cavity became so great that there vas notable shat- <br />tering and bulking of the strata as they dropped <br />into it. It is only known that when the roof finally <br />failed, [he vertical dimension of the cavity ex- <br />ceeded that of the broken rock by twenty-five feet <br />307 <br />in the deepest p•, and b}' only a few inches at a <br />distance of several hundred feet from the center. <br />The remainder of the cavity was completely Cillcd <br />with broken rock, either at the time of sinkhole <br />Formation or in the few months prior thereto. Con- <br />sequently little or no sudden subsidence took place <br />in the area located more than some two hundred <br />Feet beyond the edge of the sinkhole area. <br />REFERENCES <br />Bays, Carl A., 1954, Subsurface conditions at the <br />Plants of Canadian Industries, L[d., and Cana- <br />dian Salt Co. with reference to the subsidence oC <br />February 19, 1954: unpublished report. <br />Cale}', J.F., 1945, Paleozoic geology of the <br />Windsor-Sarma Area, Ontario: Canadian Geolog- <br />ical Survey Memoir, No. 240. <br />Landes, Ii.I~., 1945, The Salina and Bass Island <br />rocks in the Michigan Basitt: 1•lichigan Geologi- <br />cal Survey, Div. Oil and Cas Investigations, <br />Prelim Alap 40. <br />Peck, Ralph B., 1954, 1`lemorandum concerning <br />subsidence at Windsor, Ontario: unpublished re- <br />port. <br />Terzaghi, liarl, 1950, i\lemorandum concerning the <br />subsidence of brine fields: unpublished report of <br />Dec. 30. <br />---, 1954, Report on the subsidence of Febntan' <br />19, 1954, in Windsor, Canada: unpublished re- <br />port of Oct. 27. <br />