Hi Mike,
Quote:
Originally Posted by iceman
I was interested in seeing the funny looking salt ponds (?) from the plane as it headed from Perth to the Great Australian Bight. What are they? They were scattered all over the place.
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These salt pans, either with water in them as you photographed them, or
dried up, are across the length and breadth of Australia in enormous abundance.
Some of them are very ancient and are particularly spectacular throughout most
of South Australia and around the Channel Country of SW Queensland.
The relatively narrow fertile strip you and I happen to live in on the East Coast
tends to be the exception rather than the rule to how Australia "looks".
In the first of your salt pan images, you can see they appear to follow an
ancient water course.
However, both images are good examples of the problem of rising ground water
in these regions, often the result of tree clearing and agricultural practices.
Note how you can see the farm houses nearby. As the water table rises, it dissolves
the salt held in the soils, which becomes more and more concentrated. Sometimes it
reaches the surface and then evaporates, leaving the salt pan behind.
Best Regards
Gary