Farther out on the playa at Badwater we came to this area of salt polygons. Frank Hanna described for us two possible origins for these salt polygons, and the actual origin may be a combination of both processes. Both processes begin with the drying and polygonal cracking of the playa surface as water evaporates. One process proposes that the polygonal sheets expand laterally as salt crystallizes within them and the edges of the sheets override each other. The other process suggests that salt crystallizes due to capillary action only along the polygonal cracks and that the salt grows upward from the cracks in the form of inverted salt stalactites. In the middle ground on the right is the Badwater Turtleback and behind that are additional parts of the Black Mountains.
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