Badwater Basin by Diana Sainz
by Diana Raquel Sainz
Title
Badwater Basin by Diana Sainz
Artist
Diana Raquel Sainz
Medium
Photograph - Photography - Digital Photography
Description
FEATURED IMAGE: 1-2-3-4-5 ~ FAA ~ 04/11/2014
FEATURED IMAGE: FAA Featured Images ~ FAA ~ 03/31/2014
FEATURED IMAGE: Out West ~ FAA ~ 03/28/2014
FEATURED IMAGE: Artist Best Five ~ FAA ~ 03/27/2014
FEATURED IMAGE: Signs ~ FAA ~ 03/25/2014
Badwater Basin is an endorheic basin in Death Valley National Park, Death Valley, Inyo County, California, noted as the lowest point in North America, with an elevation of 282 ft (86 m) below sea level.
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The site itself consists of a small spring-fed pool of "bad water" next to the road in a sink; the accumulated salts of the surrounding basin make it undrinkable, thus giving it the name. The pool does have animal and plant life, including pickleweed, aquatic insects, and the Badwater snail.
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Adjacent to the pool, where water is not always present at the surface, repeated freeze�thaw and evaporation cycles gradually push the thin salt crust into hexagonal honeycomb shapes.
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The pool itself is not actually the lowest point of the basin: the lowest point (which is only slightly lower) is several miles to the west and varies in position. However, the salt flats are hazardous to traverse (in many cases being only a thin white crust over mud), and so the sign marking the low point is at the pool instead. The basin was considered the lowest elevation in the Western Hemisphere until the discovery of Laguna del Carb�n in Argentina at −344 ft (−105 m)
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At Badwater, significant rainstorms flood the valley bottom periodically, covering the salt pan with a thin sheet of standing water. Each newly formed lake does not last long though, because the 1.9 in (48 mm) of average rainfall is overwhelmed by a 150 in (3,800 mm) annual evaporation rate. This is the greatest evaporation potential in the United States, meaning that a 12 ft (3.7 m) lake could dry up in a single year. While the basin is flooded, some of the salt is dissolved; it is redeposited as clean crystals when the water evaporates.
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A popular site for tourists is the sign marking "sea level" on the cliff above Badwater
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It is theorised that during the Holocene, when the regional climate was less dry, streams running from nearby mountains gradually filled Death Valley to a depth of almost 3 ft (1 m), and together with Cotton Bail Marsh and Middle Basin, made up the 80 mi (130 km) long, Lake Manly. Some of the minerals left behind by earlier Death Valley lakes dissolved in the shallow water, creating a briny solution.
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The wet times did not last as the climate warmed and rainfall declined. The lake began to dry up and minerals dissolved in the lake became increasingly concentrated as water evaporated. Eventually, only a briny soup remained, forming salty pools on the lowest parts of Death Valley's floor. Salts (95% table salt � NaCl) began to crystallize, coating the surface with a thick crust from 3 to 60 in (8 to 152 cm)
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March 25th, 2014
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