ABSTRACT The 120-m-thick Hutchinson Salt Member of the Permian Wellington Formation of central Kansas supports multiple industries. Composed of bedded halite, gypsum/anhydrite, and minor siliciclastic mudstone, it was deposited by shallow saline waters in a warm, dry climate. Underground salt mines access the purest horizon, producing salt that is distributed through the United States and Canada. The vast space left by mining supports a prosperous commercial storage enterprise and a popular underground tourist attraction. Vertical solution-mined caverns host the nation’s primary midcontinent liquid petroleum gas storage industry. This field trip will explore the origin and use of the Hutchinson Salt in core samples and subsurface outcrops while meeting in an underground salt cavern, and above ground at a solution-mined storage cavern.

ABSTRACT Pennsylvanian red beds are the youngest known rocks in the Michigan Basin. Two new formation-level units, the Pewamo Formation and the Haybridge strata, have recently been described. The Pewamo Formation, composed of Pennsylvanian red sandstones and minor laminated mudstones, is known from outcrops, abandoned quarries, and one core in Ionia County. The Haybridge unit is located in the shallow subsurface and in coal mine tailing piles in Shiawassee County. It consists of red sandstone, red mudstone, coal, and gray mudstone, all hosting Pennsylvanian macroscopic plant fossils. Neither the Pewamo nor the Haybridge rocks have any demonstrated relationship to red core cuttings reported as Jurassic from the central Lower Peninsula of Michigan. No firm evidence exists for Jurassic, or any other post-Pennsylvanian rocks in the Michigan Basin. The red core cuttings may be glacial sediments with reworked palynomorphs from rocks transported from elsewhere. A shallow coring project, followed by detailed sedimentologic, petrographic, mineralogic, and paleontologic studies, is necessary to: (1) refine the vertical and lateral stratigraphy of the Pennsylvanian rocks in Michigan; (2) solve the “Jurassic red bed problem”; and (3) understand the late Pennsylvanian–Pleistocene history of the Michigan Basin.

ABSTRACT Mineralogical and geochemical data collected from multiple sites on Mars suggest that acid saline surface waters and groundwater existed there in the past. The geologic context and sedimentology suggest that these acid saline waters were associated with groundwater-fed ephemeral lakes. Ephemeral acid saline lakes in southern Western Australia (WA) are some of the few known natural systems that have the same combination of extreme acid brine chemistry and lacustrine depositional setting as is observed on Mars. Thus, the WA acid saline environments provide a modern analog for understanding past depositional and diagenetic processes that may have occurred on Mars. Here, we examine surface sediments and sedimentary rocks that have been in contact with acid (pH down to ∼1.5) and saline brines (total dissolved solids up to ∼32%) in southern Western Australia. Through sedimentological, mineralogical, geochemical, and petrographic analyses, we identify the impacts of early diagenesis in and adjacent to eight acid saline lakes and evaluate the processes that have been important in creating these deposits. The combination of extreme chemistry, spatial variability, arid climate, and reworking by winds and floods contributes to make spatially complex depositional products that are a combination of siliciclastics and chemical sediments. Important syndepositional and very early diagenetic processes in these settings include the chemical precipitation of minerals from shallow groundwaters to form displacive crystals and cements, dissolution/partial dissolution of chemical sediments, replacement/partial replacement of some minerals, cracking due to repeated wetting and drying, and the formation of iron-oxide concretions. Minerals observed in these sediments include a variety of chlorides, sulfates, iron oxides, and phyllosilicates, many of which have textures and mineral associations that suggest authigenic formation. These observations are supported by the chemistry of the modern acid brines, which appear to be supersaturated with respect to these minerals. The range of early diagenetic products, compositions, and textures that are apparent in the WA acid saline lake sediments may provide insights into the processes that influenced the sediments on Mars and the timing of sedimentary formation processes on Mars.