Tips for visiting the Great Salt Lake; how to see salt chandeliers and an underground salt chapel in Poland; and a salt-related reading rec coming out in 2026.
In a recent issue of Core Elements, my colleague Rasoul Sorkhabi examined the role of salt in earth science. This week we’ll plunge into the world of salt, both fact and fiction. 🧂⚒
P.S. If you’re not subscribed to Core Elements and enjoy technical geoscience content or want a succinct summary of recent geoscience research in your inbox every Monday, subscribe here.
Sharon Lyon
Editor, GeoLifestyle
Great Salt Lake, Utah
Heidi Besen/Shutterstock.com.
The Great Salt Lake is the remnant of Lake Bonneville, a Pleistocene-age (30,000–13,000-year-old) lake.
Lake history:
Lake Bonneville occupied an enclosed basin formed by extensional tectonics of the Basin and Range Province. The freshwater lake covered 20,000 square miles across western Utah and parts of Idaho and Nevada.
Increased precipitation and reduced evaporation during glacial periods allowed the basin to fill.
Approximately 14,500 years ago, a natural dam at Red Rock Pass (Idaho) failed, causing a catastrophic flood that released enormous amounts of water into the Snake River Plain and lowered the lake by 300 feet.
As the climate warmed and dried, Lake Bonneville shrank dramatically, leaving behind several smaller remnant lakes, the largest being the Great Salt Lake.
The Great Salt Lake has no outlet. Water only leaves via evaporation, concentrating the salts. Salt levels vary from 5–27 percent.
Can you swim in the Great Salt Lake? Yes! The lake’s extremely high salinity makes you exceptionally buoyant, and floating is effortless. 🏊♀
But would you want to? Maybe not.
Why, you ask?
Swarms of brine flies and gnats are common in the summer and hover at the shoreline. 🪰
The salty water can sting cuts and irritate your eyes.
In hot weather, harmful algal blooms may cause advisories to be issued.
The lake’s high salinity and decaying organic matter can produce a sulfur-like odor. 🤧
Water levels fluctuate dramatically from year to year, and some parts become too shallow or muddy to reach deeper water.
The water can be cold in spring and very warm and shallow in late summer.
If you decide to brave it:
Salt crusts form on your skin. Bring fresh water to rinse off afterward.
The lakebed can be soft or sticky, so wear water shoes. The water feels “slick” because of the high mineral content.
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The Wieliczka Salt Mine is located about 15 kilometers from Kraków, Poland. A UNESCO World Heritage Site, it is known for its cultural, historical, and technological significance.
History: Rock salt mining began around 1248, making Wieliczka one of the earliest industrial operations in Europe.
By the Middle Ages, the mine supplied up to one-third of the Polish Crown’s income, known as “white gold.”
One of the world’s longest-operating mines, work continued for more than 700 years. In the 14–19th centuries, new shafts, chambers, and underground lakes were created. Miner-artists carved chapels, statues, and architectural features from the salt.
Ceasing large-scale salt production in 1996, the mine is now a tourist attraction with more than 290 kilometers of underground tunnels and 2,000 chambers. Visitors see only 2 percent of this underground labyrinth.
Area geology: The salt formed in a large evaporating inland sea during the middle Miocene (13.6 million years ago).
Uplift of the Carpathian Mountains compressed and folded the salt deposits, producing complex geologic structures.
Unique manmade features include:
Salt chandeliers
Bas-reliefs carved into the walls
Long corridors glittering with salt crystals
Underground chapels: The most famous and elaborate underground chapel is the Chapel of St. Kinga, carved entirely of rock salt, with a salt statue of the mine’s patron saint. Large enough to hold Mass for hundreds, the chapel’s walls host carvings depicting Biblical scenes, including The Last Supper.
The Mikolaj Kopernik Chamber is dedicated to Nicolaus Copernicus, who visited the mine in 1493.
The Pope John Paul II Chamber includes a salt statue of the Polish pope and was created after his pilgrimage to the mine as an archbishop.
Trip tips:
Purchase tickets in advance and select your preferred route and language.
Guided tours are mandatory.
Descent is via more than 700 stairs (return by elevator). The tour may be challenging for the claustrophobic.
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If you’ll excuse a bit of self-promotion, my third novel, Living Fossil: A Henrietta Ballantine Science Fiction Thriller, takes place on an oil rig above a subterranean salt dome.
Here are some facts upon which the book is based and the fictional direction inspired by them …
Fact: The ancestral Gulf of Mexico (America) began to form 169 million years ago, during the great rifting of Pangea. As the continents tore apart, a series of rift basins formed, a few miles in depth, extending up the east coast of the United States and along the very beginning of the Gulf of Mexico (America).
The Gulf basin was open to the east along a narrow seaway, and salty water flowed into it through a series of narrow channels. The hypersaline water sat in the last basin and evaporated, depositing salt more than 5,000 feet thick. This formation became known as the Louann Salt.
The buried salt flowed plastically under pressure from the overburden of younger rocks deposited on top of it. In this manner, the salt domes of the Gulf Coast formed, trapping oil and natural gas along their flanks.
Fiction: On an oil rig deep in a Louisiana lake, paleontologist Henrietta Ballantine makes a chilling discovery: Something impossibly alive in the drilling mud—something ancient, tiny, and unknown to modern science.
With the help of fellow paleontologists Beau and Louisiana Fish and Wildlife biologist Armand, Henrietta races to identify the bizarre organisms. In captivity, the creatures grow at an alarming rate, sprouting claws and stingers and acting with deadly aggression. Worse, they’ve already escaped into the wild.
Could these monsters be living fossils, long dormant within subterranean salt beds?
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