Painting by Geochemistry

Salt deposits under the sea surface on the beach of Ein Gedi, Dead Sea, form this colourful marble-like patterns, whose undulating lines are shaped by waves and tides. The diverse colours of the strips may be due to several causes, including mixing of mud and dissolved salts as well as inclusion of trace metals in the crystal lattice of halide salts. Along the shores of the Dead Sea, in fact, it is possible to find many several kind of salt formations whose variations in forms and colours depend on how ions are arranged within the structure and whether other ions or trace elements are included into the lattice to substitute particles with the same charge.