During the past 15 yr, the global requirement for fertilizers has grown considerably, mainly due to demand by a larger and wealthier world population for more and higher-quality food. The demand and price for potash as a primary fertilizer ingredient have increased in tandem, because of the necessity to increase the quantity and quality of food production on the decreasing amount of available arable land. The primary sources of potash are evaporites, which occur mainly in marine salt basins and a few brine-bearing continental basins. World potash resources are large, but distribution is inequitable and not presently developed in countries where population and food requirements are large and increasing. There is no known substitute for potash in fertilizer, so knowledge of the world’s potash resources is critical for a sustainable future. The U.S. Geological Survey recently completed a global assessment of evaporite-hosted potash resources, which included a geographic information system–based inventory of known potash resources. This assessment included permissive areas or tracts for undiscovered resources at a scale of 1:1,000,000. Assessments of undiscovered potash resources were conducted for a number of the world’s evaporite-hosted potash basins. The data collected provide a major advance in our knowledge of global potash resources that did not exist prior to this study. The two databases include: (1) potash deposits and occurrences, and (2) potash tracts (basins that contain these deposits and occurrences and potentially undiscovered potash deposits). Data available include geology, mineralogy, grade, tonnage, depth, thickness, areal extent, and structure, as well as numerous pertinent references.

Abstract The energy and mineral resources of the vast Pacific basin and its neighboring land areas play a vital role in meeting the ever-growing needs of society worldwide. Building on the foundation of a highly successful conference held in 1978, this volume contains 51 of the 135 papers presented there. Subjects included are general and specific in nature--oil, gas, and coal resources; geothermal fields, uranium; tin; evaporites, trace elements; water resources; magma energy and fuels from magma. Geological and geophysical techniques, and also the new tool of remote sending for petroleum and minerals exploration are represented. Tectonics, structure fundamentals, subsurface hazards, international treaties and the law of the deep sea are discussed. Seventeen countries and regions are represented in these papers: Thailand, Nicaragua, the United States, Japan, Peru, Antarctica, El Salvador, Australia, Mexico, Taiwan, New Zealand, China, Chile, Indonesia, Canada, and the Pacific Ocean.