Today's photos is from Cottonball Basin, Death Valley, California. It's a shot I took around sunset while visiting the valley recently.
The white cottonball salt formations on the surface used to be shoveled up by chinese laborers as the input for the borax processing plants in the valley. Fortunately for them the borax wouldn't crystallize in the summer months so the operation wasn't year-round and they wouldn't have to stay in the valley through the hottest summer months.
The water here is undrinkable, of course. It persists on the surface for a few miles joining with Salt Creek that runs to the West of this location. In times of rainfall, these rivulets will eventually make their way to Badwater Basin, some 25 miles to the South.
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