Salt glacier

Salt glaciers are aufdringende to the earth's surface and there slowly downhill flowing salt masses (typically from rock salt or halite ). They are formed when rising salt domes or salt diapirs penetrate their overburden and reach the earth's surface (so-called extrusion). Provided appropriate slope, the salt of the gravity flows down the valley following then. Salt glaciers can occur only in low rainfall ( arid ) areas, as the slowly passing to the surface salt masses are resolved more quickly in humid climates, as they will be restocked because of the water solubility of salts. This is the case with the Central European salt domes.

Salt glaciers are today known mainly from the Zagros Mountains in Iran. The first scientific description of the phenomenon comes from George Martin Lees (1927 ), who is also the term " salt glacier " coined. The viscosity depends on the water content of the salt (inter crystalline water). It is smallest - and therefore the flow rate at the most - if the salt is moistened by precipitation. Flow rates of about 500 mm per day at Kuh-e - Namak, about 20 km north- west of Qom, were described during the winter rainy season. The resulting salt glacier may reach several kilometers in length and be traversed as consisting of ice glaciers of columns. Carried clay minerals can stain the material dark.