Evaporation from sea water
Mining salt from the earth
Creating salt brines
salt is naturally made when small ponds and bays dry up and large salt crystals are left behind where the water once
was. When making sea salt on a high scale, seawater is put in big concentrating ponds to allow fast evaporation
from the sun and the wind. The making of sea salt is only performed in areas without much rain so enough time to
passes for evaporation. Because of this, sea salt is mainly produced in dry places like the Mediterranean and
Australia.
Rock salt or halite is in the rocky under layers of the Earth and can be found through deep-shaft mining. These big
bits of salt are there because of ancient underground waterways that have dried up. Rock salt is found with
dynamite, like the mining of any other mineral. Once it is taken up to the top, it is crushed and used for non-food
purposes. This type of salt has many minerals and other imperfections that make it inedible.
Even though the ocean is a natural salt brine, hydraulic mining / solution mining of salt, pumping water below the
earth's surface to melt salt deposits and create a salt brine. This brine is pumped to the top and melted to create salt.
The salty brine may be treated before evaporation to lower mineral content, having a nearly pure sodium chloride
crystal. This method is cheap and produces a very clean salt. Most table salt is made using this method.