Looks Like Blue Candyfloss from Space — What’s at Utah’s Potash Mine?

Behind its visual beauty captured from space, a string of multi-coloured ponds on the Utah plateau is in fact an advanced industrial facility to purify potassium chloride, or potash. An extraordinary photograph taken by an astronaut shows a view resembling bright blue lines of abstract paintings stretching beside the river’s deep green bend of the Colorado River, Utah, United States.

Those vividly coloured lines are solar evaporation ponds. They are located about 13 kilometres southwest of Moab, in the heart of the Colorado Plateau—a high-elevation region spanning around 340,000 square kilometres that crosses parts of Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona.

The ponds are used to purify potassium chloride, commercially known as potash, mined at a site located immediately adjacent to the ponds.

According to Live Science, the potash mining process is carried out by pumping boiling water into the ground to dissolve minerals and produce a brine rich in chemicals. The dense brine is then extracted and channelled into solar evaporation ponds until it shrinks into small brown crystals.

The stark colour differences in each pond indicate that the water inside is at different evaporation phases. When the pond is first filled with brine, workers add dark blue dye to the water. The dye helps the water absorb more sunlight, significantly speeding up evaporation.

Over time the dye itself also evaporates. As the water volume decreases, the bright blue intensity gradually fades. In the final evaporation phase, the pond turns white, then transforms into pale brown (tan) when the dried potash layer is the only material left at the bottom of the pond.

Historically, the term ‘potash’ derives from ‘pot ash’ — ash from a pot — the name of a pre-industrial fertiliser made by mixing wood ash with water and evaporating the mixture in a pot.

The chemical element potassium was named after this product once scientists discovered that the element is the main secret ingredient in it.

Today, potassium sulphate is mainly used as a raw material for global agricultural fertilisers, though it has a range of other industrial applications including pharmaceuticals, cement, fire-extinguishing equipment, textiles, and even beer.