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At the present concentration of ∼3% of salt in the oceans, 1 km of water will leave behind ∼30m of salt, if all the water evaporated. Thus the up to 6km thick evaporites in the Hellenides of the Mediterranean require an ocean depth of ∼200km or an alternative explanation of their formation. In review of literature that describes salt domes forming through gravity driven plastic flow of deep salt derived from the evaporation of ancient salty seas; an alternative and comprehensive proposition of salt dome formation is presented and explained in the context of EMST. Rock salt is composed of interlocking isometric crystals, and has a higher compressional and shear wave velocity than that of surrounding sediments. Rock salt has a rigidity modulus of 16GPa and an incompressibility of 24GPa; comparable to crustal igneous rock. Salt, despite its high rigidity and incompressibility is very brittle and cannot flow plastically. Plastic flow would require a reduction in rigidity from high temperature and for overburden pressure to exceed the bulk modulus; conditions that don't exist where salt domes are formed. Sandstones have a bulk modulus below 10GPa in dry formations, and 15GPa in saturated formations. Rock salt has a higher resistance to shear stress, and can exert more stress than the rigid rock matrix of the surrounding sandstone, due to its crystalline structure. Sediments are materially weaker than a continuous salt body and cannot yield or deform the salt body. It is only through the solid growth of the salt body that deformation of the sediments can occur. Standing water held within epicontinental seas was originally fresh prior to the growth of rock salt. Rock salt began to form at the Earth's surface after the binding energy per nucleon of Chlorine was surpassed within the Earth's core. Chlorine then solidly entered, in abundance, into the crystalline structure of pre-existing Sodium bearing surface minerals such as feldspars that composed the all encompassing felsic crust of a smaller Earth, forming salt structures and domes - excess mass. Growing salt domes pierced the surface and dissolved into the lower lying shallow sea basins, giving the modern salty ocean water. EMST considers the Earth's inner core to be a high tension, high energy, low temperature location where the spontaneous transformation of "non-visible" mass-energy-unpaired standing waves to "visible" mass-matter-paired standing waves occurs in compliance with the conservation principle. This process has a cyclic steady-state component and a linear evolutionary component. New matter is added to the crystalline structure of the mantle, either crystallizing at depth or ascending under pressure towards the surface where it is solidly emplaced into the crystalline structure of pre-existing surface minerals. All minerals on Earth, rock salt included, are formed throughout geological history through this process and their composition reflects the energy state of the Earth's inner core.
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