Mike Hudec on Salt Tectonics

05/11/25 • 24 min

Most of Earth’s salt is dissolved in the oceans. But there is also a significant amount of solid salt among continental rocks. And because of their mechanical properties, salt formations can have a dramatic effect on the structure and evolution of the rocks that surround them. This gives rise to what we call salt tectonics – at first sight, a rather surprising juxtaposition of a soft, powdery substance with a word that connotes the larger scale structure of the crust.

In the podcast, Mike Hudec explains the origin of salt in the Earth’s crust and describes the structures it forms when subjected to stresses. He also discusses how salt can play in important role in the formation of oil and gas reservoirs.

Hudec is a research professor at the Bureau of Economic Geology at the University of Texas at Austin.

Hudec is a research professor at the Bureau of Economic Geology at the University of Texas at Austin.

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Vic Baker on Megafloods

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Next Episode

Folarin Kolawole on Continental Rifting

From East Africa to southwest USA, many regions of the Earth’s continental lithosphere are rifting. We see evidence of past rifting along the passive margins of continents that were once contiguous but are now separated by wide oceans. How does something as apparently solid and durable as a continent break apart?

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