Northern Appalachian Salt

AMERICAN pioneers first discovered "commercial" salt in western New York State. Geologists gave the classically correct name of Salina to the salt bearing strata of New York. Rock salt occurs in rocks of approximately the same age and stratigraphic position as New York's Salina "group", to the south and southwest, in western Pennsylvania, eastern Ohio and northwestern West Virginia. Sodium chloride and associated salts occur in brines throughout much of the same area as the rock salt. Brines also are found in areas well beyond the margins of that under which the rock salt lies, especially to the west in Ohio and to the south in West Virginia. The occurrence of the brines in the same area as the rock salt is almost always coincidental rather than indicative of a physical association.