Am I reading that they are looking for SALT MINES underwater?
Wouldn't the salt disolve back into the sea water?
This sounds fishy to me.
No..
This is rock salt, or halite..
It has been compressed and heated by geologic forces until it has crystallized, become plastic and flowed like a liquid under pressure, then cooled..
Rock salt in these domes has to be blasted and drilled just like any rock or mineral..
There are miles deep salt layers on the bottom of the Mediterranean which has completely dried out 40+ times. The last time it was completely dry was 5 million years ago.
Now, I suspect that it (The Mediterranean) was blocked from the world's oceans during some parts of the last Ice Age and may have been seperated into a number of sections and dessicated to very low water levels in those sections....the same may have happened in the Gulf Of Mexico.