This article was first published in the August 2015 issue of WIRED magazine. Be the first to read WIRED's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online
This is not a watercolour. It's the 7,000-hectare Shark Bay salt field in Useless Loop in western Australia. What look like brushstrokes are the marks left by salt-harvesting machines, which produce about 1.6 million tonnes of the purest-grade salt in the world every year. "The salt is extracted from very pure high-saline seawater, 50 per cent more saline than the ocean," says Graeme Landgren, general manager of the plant, which is owned by Japanese corporation Mitsui Group.
Salt water is pulled into closed lagoons by wind, gravity, a few pumps and the tide. Then evaporation and wind gradually concentrate it. After it is pumped into shallow crystallising ponds, further evaporation leaves a thick layer of very pure salt. When 20cm to 40cm of it remains, it's harvested and accounts for 93 per cent of Australia's salt production. "Salt from Useless Loop is among the highest natural-grade solar-marine salt found anywhere in the world," says Landgren. And the area is just as exclusive. Though surrounded by Shark Bay, a Unesco heritage site, no tourists are allowed. Instead, only the salt fields' employees and their families live in the area. "We have our own private town," says Landgren. Salt: still shaking things up.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
