Monday, February 22, 2010

More Death Valley Photographs - Badwater


Badwater was a source of despair for the first Europeans to reach Death Valley, '49ers who hoped to find a shortcut to the newly discovered Gold deposits in the Sierras. From a distance, the flats look like a freshwater lake; close-up, you can see the intense salinity - five times that of seawater - is causing salt to crystallize continuously beneath the unrelenting sun.


At 282-feet below sea-level, and with no exiting stream, there is nothing to stop the build-up of salt.

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