Day 347: Inner Dome

While reading the recent issue of CLUI's Lay of the Land, I came across the article, "Some Faces From The Portrait Gallery Of The Texas Oilscape". In this article (featured on page 25) the caption for the Mont Belvieu Storage Area caught my eye and reinvigorated my interest in geologically formed salt domes, salt beds, and country's interesting usage of them for storing oil, gas, and nuclear waste.

"Mont Belvieu is the largest volatile hydrocarbon storage site in the country. Around 100 excavated cavities have been made inside the large salt dome that underlies the rise in the landscape that gives the town its name. Of these some are over 2,000 feet tall, with more capacity than a supertanker. Several companies operate the storage cavities and the pipelines connected to them, that flow to and from the refineries of the Gulf Coast, and to markets elsewhere in the country. Mont Belieu is one of dozens of salt domes along the Gulf Coast, many of which have been developed as oil drilling sites, and as underground gas and petrochemical storage."

- From Lay of the Land