Most beautiful ponds: Even industrial landscapes created by human hands can sometimes cause admiration. An example of this – Deposit of potassium salt in Utah, photos which amaze with its unearthly beauty.
The most beautiful ponds in the Utah desert
This Deposit is located in the valley of the Colorado River, near the town of Moab, and operated since 1965. According to experts, it contains about 2 billion tons of potash ore, so reserves will last 125 years. Here is the extraction of potassium chloride and other mineral salts with the help of artificially created ponds-evaporators. The extraction of potassium salts in such a way is quite a long and laborious process. In drilled wells pumped hot water to dissolve rocks containing potassium salt. The thus obtained solution is pumped to the surface and poured into evaporation ponds.
These salt ponds have an area of about 1.5 sq km and is lined with special waterproof material to prevent seepage of the solution into the soil. Depending on the stage of evaporation, solutions in these ponds have a different hue. The saturated bright blue color of the water gives special dyes that are added to the solutions to increase the evaporation of water and thus speed up the process of obtaining salt. But sometimes the ponds become red and yellow shades, due to the presence in the solution of certain kinds of algae. From the bird’s eye view of evaporation ponds at this moment look fantastically beautiful.
The evaporation process of excess moisture takes about 9 months, after which the remaining mineral salts are harvested and sent for further processing. Potassium salts are a major component of fertilizers used in agriculture. They are also used in other industries.
