Salt Flats -- Death Valley National Park, CA
N 36° 13.801 W 116° 46.063
11S E 520874 N 4009486
One of several interpretive signs at this fascinating area in Death Valley National Park.
Waymark Code: WMQVDH
Location: Texas, United States
Date Posted: 03/31/2016
Views: 16
This sign is located at the boardwalk area at Blackwater Pool in Badwater Basin, and reads as follows:
SALT FLATS
Crystal Power
The vast, surreal salt flats at Badwater basin change constantly. Salt crystals expand, pushing the crust of salt into rough chaotic forms. Newly formed crystals lose between mud cracks, sketching strange patterns on the surface of the salt flat. Passing rainstorms washed off windblown dust and generate a fresh layer of blinding white salt. Floods create temporary lakes that dissolve salts back into solution starting the process all over again.
Intense Concentration
The source of Badwater salsas Death Valley's drainage system of 9000 square miles -- an area larger than New Hampshire. Rain falling on distant peaks creates floods the rush ever lower. Along the way, minerals dissolve from rocks and join the flood. Here, at the lowest elevation, floods come to rest, forming temporary lakes. As the water evaporates, minerals concentrate until only the salts remain. After thousands of years in the salts of washed into produce layer upon layer of salt crust.
Salt crusts are fragile. Please tread lightly.
Sodium chloride- better known as table salt - makes up the majority of salts on Badwater basin. Other evaporative minerals found here include calcite, gypsum, and borax."
Group that erected the marker: National Park Service
URL of a web site with more information about the history mentioned on the sign: [Web Link]
Address of where the marker is located. Approximate if necessary:
Badwater Basin
Death Valley National ParkCA
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Visit Instructions:
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