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Abstract

Salt crusts at the surface of salt deserts have a specific polygonal structures. Those
structures probably form due to convection of the salt water below the surface.
To get an idea how the dynamics of the salt water are and how they influence the
structure of the salt crust experimental 3D models of salt deserts were used for this
thesis.
With these experiments several different measurements were performed. The evaporation
rates were measured, the forming of crusts was observed, with coloring the
incoming water the dynamics of it were made visible and the salt concentration of
the water in the sand in different parts of the models was measured.
With those results it was found that there is convection due to density differences
(because of different salt concentrations) and that the convection influences the
structure of the salt crust.