Phospate in Utah (B-59)

By: Thomas M. Cheney

The Permian Phosphoria formation contains the major phosphate
deposits in the western United States. It consists mostly of phosphatic
shale, chert, and cherty Shale, but in Utah, the Phosphoria formation
intertongues with the carbonate rocks and cherty carbonate rocks of the
Park City formation. The Phosphoria is well developed in northeastern
Utah, but it thins southward and eastward. The Park City formation also
thins southward and eastward and intertongues with, and passes into, red
and greenish-gray and tawny beds that are northward and northwestward-extending
tongues of the Woodside formation.

The only economically important phosphate deposits in Utah are those
in the Meade Peak phosphatic shale member of the Phosphoria formation.
The Meade Peak contains both acid-grade and furnace-grade deposits in the
Northern Wasatch Mountains and Crawford Mountains, Utah; and it contains
large reserves of low-grade rock amenable to strip-mining on the southern
flank of the Uinta Mountains near Vernal, Utah.

Phosphate deposits are also present in a phosphatic shale unit, 25 to
150 feet thick, at the base of the Mississippian Deseret limestone in the
Tlntic, Oquirrh, and southern and central Wasatch Mountains, Utah, and
at the base of its partial equivalent, the Brazer limestone, in the northern
Wasatch Mountains, Utah. As now known, these phosphate deposits are
not rich, thick, nor extensive enough to be minable at the present time.

Other Information:
Published: 1957
Pages: 66
Location: Salt Lake, Dagget, Vernal Counties, Utah
Media Type: Paper Publication