THE WEST POINT, TEXAS, SALT DOME 651 



This alignment and parallelism were recognized and mapped by 

 Veatch' before he was aware of the existence of the Keechi and 

 West Point domes. 



Davis Hill, in Liberty County, some no miles S.SE., is the near- 

 est of the known coastal salt domes, and the so-called Brenham 

 dome is about the same distance S.SW. 



The Batson and Saratoga fields, some 125 miles S.SE. from 

 West Point, are the nearest proven oil fields with salt-dome 

 structure. The nearest producing oil field of any type is the 

 Powell pool of the Corsicana field, some 40 miles northwest, and 

 the nearest producing gas field is the Mexia-Groesbeck field, some 

 37 miles due west of the West Point dome. 



TOPOGRAPHY 



Topographically, this dome consists essentially of an almost 

 perfect circular mound surrounded by a ring-shaped valley, and 

 this in turn is bounded on its outer margin by high hills having 

 steep scarp faces toward the valley and long dip slopes away from 

 it. This topography is so expressive that one would be justified 

 in classifying this as a salt-dome structure on the basis of topo- 

 graphic evidence alone. 



The mound forms in plane section an almost perfect circle 

 7,500 feet in diameter. The highest point is near its southern edge 

 just opposite the divide between the two streams forming the ring- 

 shaped encircling valley. The height of the mound here is sixty 

 feet above that of the divide and one hundred feet above that of 

 the junction of the two streams, the lowest point in the ring-shaped 

 valley. 



The mound is rather flat on top and dips steeply off to the 

 valley on all sides, indicating that the erosion of the dome itself 

 is not keeping pace with the cutting down of the valley. The 

 erosion of this dome is developing regularly by means of channels 

 and run-off normal to the major drainage, that of the ring-shaped 

 valley. The longest draws or arroyos are those normal to the major 

 drainage at its lowest point, and there seems to be no development 



'A. C. Veatch, "The Salines of North Louisiana," Geol. Survey Louisiana, 

 Report of igo2, pp. 41-100. 



