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Salt Pan (geology)
Natural salt pans or salt flats are flat expanses of ground covered with salt and other minerals, usually shining white under the sun. They are found in deserts and are natural formations (unlike salt evaporation ponds, which are artificial). A salt pan forms by evaporation of a water pool, such as a lake or pond. This happens in climates where the rate of water evaporation exceeds the rate of that is, in a desert. If the water cannot drain into the ground, it remains on the surface until it evaporates, leaving behind minerals precipitated from the salt ions Solution (chemistry), dissolved in the water. Over thousands of years, the minerals (usually salts) accumulate on the surface. These minerals reflect the sun's rays and often appear as white areas. Salt pans can be dangerous. The crust of salt can conceal a quagmire of mud that can engulf a truck. The Qattara Depression in the eastern Sahara Desert contains many such traps which served as strategic barriers during World War ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bonneville Salt Flats
The Bonneville Salt Flats are a densely packed salt pan in Tooele County in northwestern Utah, United States. A remnant of the Pleistocene Lake Bonneville, it is the largest of many salt flats west of the Great Salt Lake. It is public land managed by the Bureau of Land Management and is known for land speed records at the Bonneville Speedway. The Flats is open to the public. The Flats are about 12 miles (19 km) long and 5 miles (8 km) wide, with a crust almost 5 ft (1.5m) thick at the center and less than one inch (2.5 cm) towards the edges. It is estimated to hold 147 million tons of salt, about 90% of which is common table salt. History Geologist Grove Karl Gilbert named the area after Benjamin Bonneville, a U.S. Army officer who explored the Intermountain West in the 1830s. In 1907, Bill Rishel and two local businessmen tested the suitability of the salt for driving by taking a Pierce-Arrow onto its surface. A railway line across the Flats was comp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Salt Marsh
A salt marsh, saltmarsh or salting, also known as a coastal salt marsh or a tidal marsh, is a coastal ecosystem in the upper coastal intertidal zone between land and open saltwater or brackish water that is regularly flooded by the tides. It is dominated by dense stands of salt-tolerant plants such as herbs, grasses, or low shrubs. These plants are terrestrial in origin and are essential to the stability of the salt marsh in trapping and binding sediments. Salt marshes play a large role in the aquatic food web and the delivery of nutrients to coastal waters. They also support terrestrial animals and provide coastal protection. Salt marshes have historically been endangered by poorly implemented coastal management practices, with land reclaimed for human uses or polluted by upstream agriculture or other industrial coastal uses. Additionally, sea level rise caused by climate change is endangering other marshes, through erosion and submersion of otherwise tidal marshes. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rann Of Kutch
The Rann of Kutch is a large area of salt marshes that span the border between India and Pakistan. It is located mostly in the Kutch district of the Indian state of Gujarat, with a minor portion extending into the Sindh province of Pakistan. It is divided into the Great Rann of Kutch, Great Rann and Little Rann of Kutch, Little Rann. It used to be a part of the Arabian Sea, but it then dried up, leaving behind the salt, which formed the Rann of Kutch. The Luni River, Luni flowed into the Rann of Kutch, but when the Rann dried up, the Luni was left behind, which explains why the Luni does not flow into the Arabian Sea today. Geography The Rann of Kutch is located mostly in the Indian state of Gujarat, specifically Kutch district, for which it is named. Some parts extend into the Pakistani province of Sindh. The word ''Rann or Rinn'' means "desert" in Sindhi and Gujarati. The Rann of Kutch covers around 26,000 square kilometres (10,000 square miles). The Great Rann of Kutch is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Altimeter
An altimeter or an altitude meter is an instrument used to measure the altitude of an object above a fixed level. The measurement of altitude is called altimetry, which is related to the term bathymetry, the measurement of depth under water. Types Pressure altimeter Sonic altimeter In 1931, the US Army Air corps and General Electric together tested a sonic altimeter for aircraft, which was considered more reliable and accurate than one that relied on air pressure when heavy fog or rain was present. The new altimeter used a series of high-pitched sounds like those made by a bat to measure the distance from the aircraft to the surface, which on return to the aircraft was converted to feet shown on a gauge inside the aircraft cockpit. Radar altimeter A radar altimeter measures altitude more directly, using the time taken for a radio signal to reflect from the surface back to the aircraft. Alternatively, Frequency Modulated Continuous-wave radar can be used. The greater th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
USGS
The United States Geological Survey (USGS), founded as the Geological Survey, is an government agency, agency of the United States Department of the Interior, U.S. Department of the Interior whose work spans the disciplines of biology, geography, geology, and hydrology. The agency was founded on March 3, 1879, to study the landscape of the United States, its natural resources, and the natural hazards that threaten it. The agency also makes maps of planets and moons, based on data from List of NASA missions, U.S. space probes. The sole scientific agency of the U.S. Department of the Interior, USGS is a fact-finding research organization with no regulatory responsibility. It is headquartered in Reston, Virginia, with major offices near Lakewood, Colorado; at the Denver Federal Center; and in NASA Research Park in California. In 2009, it employed about 8,670 people. The current motto of the USGS, in use since August 1997, is "science for a changing world". The agency's previous s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tonne
The tonne ( or ; symbol: t) is a unit of mass equal to 1,000 kilograms. It is a non-SI unit accepted for use with SI. It is also referred to as a metric ton in the United States to distinguish it from the non-metric units of the short ton ( United States customary units) and the long ton ( British imperial units). It is equivalent to approximately 2,204.6 pounds, 1.102 short tons, and 0.984 long tons. The official SI unit is the megagram (Mg), a less common way to express the same amount. Symbol and abbreviations The BIPM symbol for the tonne is t, adopted at the same time as the unit in 1879.Table 6 . BIPM. Retrieved on 2011-07-10. Its use is also official for the metric ton in the United States, having been adopted by the United States |
Bolivia
Bolivia, officially the Plurinational State of Bolivia, is a landlocked country located in central South America. The country features diverse geography, including vast Amazonian plains, tropical lowlands, mountains, the Gran Chaco Province, warm valleys, high-altitude Andean plateaus, and snow-capped peaks, encompassing a wide range of climates and biomes across its regions and cities. It includes part of the Pantanal, the largest tropical wetland in the world, along its eastern border. It is bordered by Brazil to the Bolivia-Brazil border, north and east, Paraguay to the southeast, Argentina to the Argentina-Bolivia border, south, Chile to the Bolivia–Chile border, southwest, and Peru to the west. The seat of government is La Paz, which contains the executive, legislative, and electoral branches of government, while the constitutional capital is Sucre, the seat of the judiciary. The largest city and principal industrial center is Santa Cruz de la Sierra, located on the Geog ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Salar De Uyuni
Salar de Uyuni (or "Salar de Tunupa") is the world's largest salt flat, or playa, at in area. It is in the Daniel Campos Province in Potosí in southwest Bolivia, near the crest of the Andes at an elevation of above sea level. The Salar was formed as a result of transformations between several prehistoric lakes that existed around forty thousand years ago but had all evaporated over time. It is now covered by a few meters of salt crust, which has an extraordinary flatness with the average elevation variations within one meter over the entire area of the Salar. The crust serves as a source of salt and covers a pool of brine, which is exceptionally rich in lithium. The large area, clear skies, and exceptional flatness of the surface make the Salar ideal for calibrating the altimeters of Earth observation satellites. Following rain, a thin layer of dead calm water transforms the flat into the world's largest mirror, across. The Salar serves as the major transport route across ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Namibia
Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country on the west coast of Southern Africa. Its borders include the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south; in the northeast, approximating a quadripoint, Zimbabwe lies less than 200 metres (660 feet) away along the Zambezi, Zambezi River near Kazungula, Zambia. Namibia's capital and largest city is Windhoek. Namibia is the driest country in sub-Saharan Africa, and has been inhabited since prehistoric times by the Khoekhoe, Khoi, San people, San, Damara people, Damara and Nama people. Around the 14th century, immigration, immigrating Bantu peoples arrived as part of the Bantu expansion. From 1600 the Ovambo people#History, Ovambo formed kingdoms, such as Ondonga and Oukwanyama. In 1884, the German Empire established rule over most of the territory, forming a colony known as German South West Africa. Between 1904 and 1908, German troops waged a punitive ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Etosha National Park
Etosha National Park is a national park in northwestern Namibia and one of the largest national parks in Africa. It was proclaimed a game reserve in March 1907 in Ordinance 88 by the Governor of German South West Africa, Friedrich von Lindequist. It was designated as ''Wildschutzgebiet'' in 1958, and was awarded the status of national park in 1967, by an act of parliament of the Republic of South Africa. It spans an area of and was named after the large Etosha pan which is almost entirely within the park. With an area of , the Etosha pan covers 23% of the total area of the national park. The area is home to hundreds of species of mammals, birds and reptiles, including several Threatened species, threatened and Endangered species, endangered species such as the black rhinoceros. Sixty-one black rhinoceros were killed during poaching in Namibia during 2022, 46 of which were killed in Etosha. The park is located in the Kunene Region, Kunene region and shares boundaries with the regi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Etosha Pan
The Etosha Pan is a large endorheic salt pan, forming part of the Cuvelai-Etosha Basin in the north of Namibia. It is a vast hollow in the ground in which water may collect or in which a deposit of salt remains after water has evaporated. The 120-kilometre-long (75-mile-long) dry lakebed and its surroundings are protected as Etosha National Park, Namibia's second-largest wildlife park, covering . The pan is mostly dry, but after heavy rains, it is flooded with a thin layer of water, which is heavily salted by the mineral deposits on the surface. Location and description Etosha, meaning 'Great White Place' in Oshindonga, is made of a large mineral pan. The area exhibits a characteristic white and greenish surface, which spreads over . The pan is believed to have developed through tectonic activity over about ten million years. Around 16,000 years ago, when ice sheets were melting across the land masses of the Northern Hemisphere, a wet-climate phase in Southern Africa caused ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
