Photographer Barbara Brown captured these striking aerial views in Namibia. Coastal dunes and saltworks feature in the photos from Walvis Bay, where wind, waves, evaporation, and humankind have shaped the landscape. The colorful and dendritic dune images come from Sossusvlei, where the ephemeral Tsauchab River ends in the Namib Desert. Recent flooding left its mark on the dry landscape. (Image credit: B. Brown/IAPOTY; via Colossal)
In cold weather, a new geological feature has shown up at Utah’s Great Salt Lake in the last decade. These salty mirabilite mounds form terraced crystals that resemble Yellowstone’s Mammoth Hot Springs.
Mirabilite is hydrated sodium sulfate (as opposed to the sodium chloride of table salt). The structures form when upwelling spring water partially dissolves the layer of mirabilite found beneath the lake bed. That sulfate-laden water rises to the surface, where it freezes into the crystals seen here.
When temperatures rise above freezing, the water in the mirabilite evaporates, leaving behind white, powdery thenardite. (Video credit: Great Salt Lake Institute; image credit: Utah Geological Survey)
Years ago, photographer Ernie Button discovered an intriguing stain left behind in his whiskey glass after the last drops evaporated. That discovery led both to beautiful images and an entire scientific paper analyzing how the alcohol, surfactants, and polymers in the whiskey combined to leave such a uniform stain. Over the years, Button continued investigating liquor stains, looking at gin, rice whisky, and aging effects. Here, he’s turned his lens to cognac, producing stains that look like oil slicks, aerial landscapes, and even cartoonish faces! (Image and submission credit: E. Button)
Ocean sprays, coughs, and sneezes are just a few of the ways that droplets full of bacteria and salt can get aloft on a breeze. How do these bacteria stay viable even as their droplet evaporates? That’s the question behind this video’s research.
When a bacteria-laden droplet or a salt-laden droplet dries, the evaporating droplet’s contact area shrinks, leaving behind only a concentrated lump of bacteria or salt. But when droplets contain both salt and bacteria, the drying droplet’s contact line gets pinned, leaving a larger area stain. The bacteria’s presence seems to promote crystallization of the salt, which–in turn–traps water in isolated spaces, perhaps helping the bacteria stay viable longer. (Video and image credit: R. Ran et al.)
Looking down on a Icelandic geothermal pool gives a view into a dragon’s eye in this drone image by photographer Miki Spitzer. It won the Gold distinction in the World Nature Photography Awards’ “Planet Earth’s landscapes and environments” category. I particularly like how the mineral-rich stains left by evaporating water highlight the texture of the ground nearby, giving the impression of the dragon’s scales. (Image credit: M. Spitzer/WNPA; via Colossal)
In this latest project, the Beauty of Science team explores colorful crystallization as chemicals precipitate out of evaporating solutions. The variety of shapes and colors is incredible. To see many more of these crystalline “gardens,” check out the video below and the project’s webpage. (Video and image credit: W. Zhu/Beauty of Science; via Colossal)
Photographer Ernie Button explores the stains left behind when various liquors evaporate. This one comes from a single malt scotch whisky by The Balvenie. The stain itself is made up of particles left behind when the alcohol and water in the whisky evaporate. The pattern itself depends on a careful interplay between surface tension, evaporation, pinning forces, and internal convection as the whisky puddle dries out. (Image credit: E. Button/CUPOTY; via Colossal)
Ngangla Ringco sits atop the Tibetan Plateau, breaking up the barren landscape with eye-catching teal and blue. This saline lake sits at an altitude of 4,700 meters, fed by rainfall, Himalayan runoff, and melting glaciers and permafrost. The lake, like many inland bodies of salt water, has no outflow. Instead, water evaporates from the lake, leaving behind any salts that were dissolved in it. Over time, those left-behind salts build up and make the lake ever saltier. (Image credit: NASA; via NASA Earth Observatory)
A colorful assortment of salts dissolve and recrystallize in this microscopic timelapse video by retired engineer Jay McClellan. Every step is a gorgeous rainbow of color as the cobalt, copper, and sodium chlorides dissolve, mix, and change. Though we don’t see what’s going on in the water, fluid dynamics are a critical component of both dissolution and crystallization. In the former, concentration gradients change the water’s density, driving buoyant flows. For the latter, crystallization comes out of evaporation, where surface tension often determines where solid particles get left behind. (Video and image credit: J. McClellan; via Colossal)
This award-winning macro video shows scattered water droplets evaporating off a butterfly‘s wing. At first glance, it’s hard to see any motion outside of the camera’s sweep, but if you focus on one drop at a time, you’ll see them shrinking. For most of their lifetime, these tiny drops are nearly spherical; that’s due to the hydrophobic, water-shedding nature of the wing. But as the drops get smaller and less spherical, you may notice how the drop distorts the scales it adheres to. Wherever the drop touches, the wing scales are pulled up, and, when the drop is gone, the scales settle back down. This is a subtle but neat demonstration of the water’s adhesive power. (Video and image credit: J. McClellan; via Nikon Small World in Motion)
