2020-11-24, 08:07 PM
Over at r/DeathValleyNP (reddit's forum for DEVA) some people were curious about the Badwater polygons. Rather than just spouting off like the non-expert I am as to why the polygons form I did some online research and discovered some new (Feb 2019) technical research on this topic performed at Badwater and Owens Lake. Here is the Conclusion from this research paper.
"Salt deserts are a common landform important for modeling climate-surface interactions and express a rich repertoire of patterns and dynamics. Here we have shown that, in order to model and understand the surface expression of salt deserts, it is crucial to consider it together with the subsurface dynamics. Specifically, we have explained the emergence of regular salt polygons, which are a common salt crust pattern, as the result of a convection process in the soil underneath. To prove the connection between surface and subsurface, we demonstrated consistent results from theoretical and numerical modeling, analogue experiments and field studies. We are able to explain the onset of pattern formation based on environmental parameters and the length scale expressed by the patterns. As such, we have shown how salt polygons are part of a growing list of geophysical phenomena, such as fairy circles, ice wedge polygons, and columnar joints, which can be successfully explained as the result of the instability of a dynamical process."
You can read the pdf document here:
http://salamandersociety.com/deathvalley...2-2019.pdf
Or look at the site from which I obtained this pdf here:
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Poly..._331034186
Now I'm off to learn more about "fairy circles, ice wedge polygons, and columnar joints" of which I know nothing even though I've probably crossed over them multiple times hiking around the Death Valley flats between the Panamint Mountains and The Black Mountains.
"Salt deserts are a common landform important for modeling climate-surface interactions and express a rich repertoire of patterns and dynamics. Here we have shown that, in order to model and understand the surface expression of salt deserts, it is crucial to consider it together with the subsurface dynamics. Specifically, we have explained the emergence of regular salt polygons, which are a common salt crust pattern, as the result of a convection process in the soil underneath. To prove the connection between surface and subsurface, we demonstrated consistent results from theoretical and numerical modeling, analogue experiments and field studies. We are able to explain the onset of pattern formation based on environmental parameters and the length scale expressed by the patterns. As such, we have shown how salt polygons are part of a growing list of geophysical phenomena, such as fairy circles, ice wedge polygons, and columnar joints, which can be successfully explained as the result of the instability of a dynamical process."
You can read the pdf document here:
http://salamandersociety.com/deathvalley...2-2019.pdf
Or look at the site from which I obtained this pdf here:
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Poly..._331034186
Now I'm off to learn more about "fairy circles, ice wedge polygons, and columnar joints" of which I know nothing even though I've probably crossed over them multiple times hiking around the Death Valley flats between the Panamint Mountains and The Black Mountains.
Life begins in Death Valley