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Open-pan salt making
Open-pan salt making is a method of salt production wherein salt is extracted from brine using open pans.
Virtually all European domestic salt is obtained by solution-mining of underground salt formations, although some is still obtained by the solar evaporation of seawater.
Salt is made in two ways traditionally. Rock salt is mined from the ground. The other type known as white salt is made by the evaporation of brine. Brine is obtained in several ways. Wild brine streams, occurring from the natural solution of rock salt by groundwater, can come to the surface as natural brine springs or can be pumped up to the surface at well, shafts or boreholes. Artificial brine is obtained through solution mining of rock salt with freshwater and is known as 'controlled brine pumping'. A bastard brine used to be made by allowing freshwater to run through abandoned rock salt mines. A salt-on-salt process strengthens brine by dissolving rock salt and/or crystal salt in weak brine or seawater before evaporation. Solar evaporation uses the sun to strengthen and evaporate seawater trapped on the sea-shore to make sea salt crystals, or to strengthen and evaporate brine sourced from natural springs where it is made into white salt crystals.
This led to three types of salt production, all of which used a variation of the open-pan salt method:
Coastal salt production, involving solar evaporation of seawater, followed by artificial evaporation of salt using the open-pan technique in structures known as 'salterns'.
Inland salt production, using brine from natural brine streams flowing over buried salt deposits that were pumped up from the ground and evaporated using the open-pan technique.
Salt refining, a large-scale salt industry developed in coastal locations and based on a combination of inland salt mining and coastal salt production. Referred to as salt refining or salt-on-salt, the process combined weak brine from seawater with mined rock salt, and evaporated the brine into a white salt.
Open-pan salt production was confined to a few locations where geological conditions preserved layers of salt beneath the ground. Only five complexes of inland open-pan salt works now survive in the world: Lion Salt Works, Cheshire, United Kingdom; Royal Saltworks at Arc-et-Senans, Salins-les-Bains, France; Saline Luisenhall, Göttingen, Germany; the Salinas da Fonte da Bica, Rio Maior, Portugal; and the Colorado Salt Works, USA. The two French saltworks at Salins-les-Bains and Arc-et-Senans became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1982.
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Open-pan salt making AI simulator
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Open-pan salt making
Open-pan salt making is a method of salt production wherein salt is extracted from brine using open pans.
Virtually all European domestic salt is obtained by solution-mining of underground salt formations, although some is still obtained by the solar evaporation of seawater.
Salt is made in two ways traditionally. Rock salt is mined from the ground. The other type known as white salt is made by the evaporation of brine. Brine is obtained in several ways. Wild brine streams, occurring from the natural solution of rock salt by groundwater, can come to the surface as natural brine springs or can be pumped up to the surface at well, shafts or boreholes. Artificial brine is obtained through solution mining of rock salt with freshwater and is known as 'controlled brine pumping'. A bastard brine used to be made by allowing freshwater to run through abandoned rock salt mines. A salt-on-salt process strengthens brine by dissolving rock salt and/or crystal salt in weak brine or seawater before evaporation. Solar evaporation uses the sun to strengthen and evaporate seawater trapped on the sea-shore to make sea salt crystals, or to strengthen and evaporate brine sourced from natural springs where it is made into white salt crystals.
This led to three types of salt production, all of which used a variation of the open-pan salt method:
Coastal salt production, involving solar evaporation of seawater, followed by artificial evaporation of salt using the open-pan technique in structures known as 'salterns'.
Inland salt production, using brine from natural brine streams flowing over buried salt deposits that were pumped up from the ground and evaporated using the open-pan technique.
Salt refining, a large-scale salt industry developed in coastal locations and based on a combination of inland salt mining and coastal salt production. Referred to as salt refining or salt-on-salt, the process combined weak brine from seawater with mined rock salt, and evaporated the brine into a white salt.
Open-pan salt production was confined to a few locations where geological conditions preserved layers of salt beneath the ground. Only five complexes of inland open-pan salt works now survive in the world: Lion Salt Works, Cheshire, United Kingdom; Royal Saltworks at Arc-et-Senans, Salins-les-Bains, France; Saline Luisenhall, Göttingen, Germany; the Salinas da Fonte da Bica, Rio Maior, Portugal; and the Colorado Salt Works, USA. The two French saltworks at Salins-les-Bains and Arc-et-Senans became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1982.