The Maras SalternsOutside of the town of Maras in the Sacred Valley of the Incas in Peru sits this u
The Maras SalternsOutside of the town of Maras in the Sacred Valley of the Incas in Peru sits this unique-looking hillslope.These are the Maras salterns or salt evaporation ponds. There are several thousand evaporation ponds on this hillslope. These humanmade ponds have been used as a source of salt for nearly 2000 years, since before this area was populated by the Incas.The ponds work thanks to a spring that carries salt-rich brine to the surface. The waters from that natural spring fall down the slope where they are diverted into these ponds. During the dry season, the water evaporates, leaving the salt behind.The salt ponds are allocated to anyone who is interested in farming them; there are ponds available that aren’t currently used by anyone, it just takes a person interested in following the rules for harvesting salt. Water is allowed to flow in to a depth of a couple centimeters, flow is shut off, and after a few days, the dried salt is scraped up.The salt probably is supplied by a unit of halite buried deep within the Andes. Salt deposits form when ocean water is available intermittently with time for the water to dry up in-between: basically the exact same process happening here on a much larger scale. The salt has been buried in the mountains and today is being slowly dissolved by groundwater that passes through.Each salt pond is only a couple square meters. In this photo, if you zoom in far enough (may require going to the full image version, linked below) there is a person wearing blue standing near the path at the top (just to the right of the wet, green pond).-JBBImage credit: Emmanuel Dyanhttps://www.flickr.com/photos/emmanueldyan/4286573196/Read more:http://www.amusingplanet.com/2013/04/pre-inca-salt-pools-at-maras-peru.htmlhttp://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1489619/#r18 -- source link
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