Abstract
Solar salterns are convenient systems for analyzing and interpreting biogeo-chemical trends through salinity gradients or between comparable salinities of different localities. Most commercial solar salterns (salinas) consist of a series of shallow ponds connected in a sequence of increasingly saline brines (Figure 13.1). Salt companies maintain records of weather, brine flow, evaporation rates, and salinity. In seawater-fed systems, Ca2+ precipitates as carbonate and sulfate salts in the concentrating ponds (see locations marked in Figure 13.2), while the brines of the salt crystallizers are saturated with NaCl and are nearly devoid of Ca2+. In some systems, potash salts containing various combinations of Na+, Mg2+, K+, Cl-, and SO 2-4 reach saturation in the most concentrated brines. These brines, called bitterns, are discarded or are processed for harvesting potash or other salts.
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Javor, B. (1989). Solar Salterns. In: Hypersaline Environments. Brock/Springer Series in Contemporary Bioscience. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-74370-2_14
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-74370-2_14
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