Wk7_Death Valley_Josiah Freeman

Death Valley Salt Flats
IMAGE CREDIT: Nps.gov

This week I visited Death Valley in California. I was most excited particularly to visit the Badwater Basin Salt Flats. The salt flats of Badwater Basin are among the largest protected salt flats in the world, stretching nearly more than 200 square miles. Despite being so fragile themselves, the salt flats are incredibly inhospitable to life. Most plants and animals cannot survive here.

I am familiar with the key principles for forming a salt flat. A large drainage basin, an enclosed basin that contains the drainage and doesn’t allow it to escape to the sea, and finally the arid climate where evaporation greatly exceeds precipitation. Allowing for the fine salts and other minerals to remain. The question that remains for me, is the composition of the salts and minerals that remain.

What kinds of minerals will I find mixed in with the salts? A geological map would help me determine the paths of the drainage basin that leads into the enclosed basin of Badwater. This would help me pinpoint what types of rocks are being stripped of their minerals along the way and gain a better understanding of what minerals end up in the salt flats here in Badwater Basin.