Seismic and well log data at Brushy Creek Dome in Anderson County, Texas, show an orderly sequence of events leading to the development of the salt dome overhang. Dome development begins with a salt anticline that swells to the point of crestal breeching. A salt stock grows with sedimentation. From the breeched anticline, overhang development results from a second period of growth after a cycle of burial. The overlying beds are uplifted, and the salt spreads laterally along bedding planes that are splayed apart.

The overhang growth ends when the underlying salt chamber is evacuated and one limb of the anticline is downthrown into the salt cavity along a "closed vent fault". The sequence of events has been generalized into a model that applies to domes at intermediate basin depths (<20,000 feet basin thickness).

Since the salt stock is made smaller by the sediment collapse into the salt cavity, and the structure beneath the overhang on the uncollapsed side of the dome is generally high, petroleum accumulation can be expected below the salt dome overhang.

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