From The Atlantic website we find these often beautiful images of salt
Salt, an essential element for all animal life, is abundant here on Earth, but it still requires extraction from stone deposits or salty waters. The process of mining that salt can produce beautiful landscapes, including deep, stable caverns, multicolored pools of water, and geometric carvings. Some of these locations have even become tourist destinations, serving as concert halls, museums, and health spas touting the benefits of halotherapy. Collected here are images of salt mines across the world, above and below ground
Tourists guarded by local policemen visit sulphur and mineral salt formations created by the upwelling springs of Dallol volcanom on January 29, 2007. (Reuters/Michel Laplace-Toulouse) #
One of the colorful brine pools that are part of a lithium salt pilot plant on the Uyuni salt lake, which holds the world’s largest reserve of lithium, located at 3,656 meters (11,995 ft) above sea level in southwestern Bolivia, on November 5, 2012. (Reuters/David Mercado)
Pools of salt at the Maras mines in Cuzco, Peru, on February 17, 2010. (Reuters/Enrique Castro-Mendivil)
An aerial view of the brine pools and processing areas of the Soquimich lithium mine on the Atacama salt flat, the world’s second largest salt flat, in the Atacama desert of northern Chile, on January 10, 2013. (Reuters/Ivan Alvarado)
Salt layers reflect in the inner lake of Turda salt mine in Turda city (450km northwest of Bucharest), on December 9, 2010. One of the most important salt mines in Transylvania, central Romania, Salina Turda has been known since ancient times, but was put into operation for underground mining work during the Roman period. (Daniel Mihailescu/AFP/Getty Images)
Ethiopia’s Danakil salt pan, near the Dallol volcano, on November 29, 2004. Dallol is unique in the world because is the only volcano situated below the sea level in Danakil depression, also known as Afar, one of the hottest places in the world with temperatures sometimes over 60 degrees Celsius in the sun. (Reuters/Michel Laplace-Toulouse)
See all 31 images here
Oxford School of Photography 