Long-distance speed racers, videographers, and tourists fascinated with social media have been drawn to a treeless area of immaculate white salt crystals in the Utah desert.Visitors claim that because it is so flat, they can sometimes perceive the earth’s curvature.
The Bonneville Salt Flats, a shimmering white expanse that once served as a prehistoric lakebed and is one of the many otherworldly landscapes in the American West, are used as a track for land speed world records and as the backdrop for films like “Independence Day” and “The World’s Fastest Indian.”
However, as people who treasure it call for adjustments to save it, it is becoming thinner and thinner.The aquifer beneath the flats is losing its saline water faster than nature can restore it, according to numerous studies.
Evaporation produces less salt than historical cycles of floods and evaporation left on the landscape because surrounding groundwater replenishes the mineral-rich brine.In the past 60 years, it has shrunk by around one-third. The whole footprint is now around half the size it was in 1994 when it peaked.
The crust is a perfect racing surface because it keeps tyres cool at high speeds, barring seasonal flooding that doesn’t go away or salt that’s left behind that may cause a blizzard. With only 8 miles of track today as opposed to 13 miles (20 kilometres) a few decades ago, racers struggle to locate a track long enough to reach record speeds.
