![]() It’s over 12 miles long and 5 miles wide! A geologist named this area after a Army officer named Benjamin Bonneville who spent a lot of time out west exploring in the 1830s. The salt flats are 46 square miles of level crusty salt for you to drive or run as far as you can. The Bonneville Salt Flats are located near Wendover, Utah in what Utahn’s call the West Desert. ![]() Travelling on the salt flats in the spring is not recommended with all the water on top. Don’t do crazy things or drive where it may be flooded because you will get stuck in the mud. If this is your first time driving on the salt flats then go easy. Plans to link this remote area to the modern world via new infrastructure are underway, with the mineral wealth hidden beneath this pristine reflective surface leading some to predict Bolivia will be ‘the Saudi Arabia of the 21st century’.Note: the salt flats are closed when they are wet or flooded so read the signpost at the end of the paved road for any notices or alerts before you explore. The region is believed to contain the biggest store of lithium in the world – in demand for its use in lightweight batteries. But now the Bolivian government has ambitious plans for mineral extraction that will bring big changes to the isolated landscape. ![]() But, come the rainy season (roughly November to April), it is often covered with a shallow layer of water, which makes it hard to tell where land ends and the sky begins.įor years, only intrepid tourists and saleros (salt gatherers) have made it to this remote place. It is almost 100 times larger than the famous Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, USA, and so flat that NASA uses its surface to calibrate sensors on board satellites.ĭuring the dry season, from May to October, the surface crust of sodium chloride – more than 10m deep in places – is parched and cracked and looks as though it belongs on another planet. The 12,000sq km salt-encrusted prehistoric lakebed is located in Potosi, southwest Bolivia, near the crest of the Andes, 3,660m above sea level. ![]()
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