Timeline for Is it practical to extract elements from the salt remnants of Martian oceans and lakes?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
8 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| 11 hours ago | comment | added | Uwe | Long ago, when there was very little free oxygen in the atmosphere of Earth, iron was dissolved in the oceans. Read en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banded_iron_formation | |
| 12 hours ago | comment | added | FrogOfJuly | But isn't it the purpose then? If you mean salt as any compound similar to NaCl, there are may elements the could be mined. Currently, brine mining wiki lists quite a few that are mined today: calcium, iodine, lithium, magnesium, potassium and bromine. If other sources are unavailable, then other elements become feasible. As I understand, even uranium could be mined this way. | |
| 13 hours ago | comment | added | Woody | @Uwe ... true, but Li+ is a chloride salt, like NaCl. | |
| 14 hours ago | comment | added | Uwe | In the US, lithium is recovered from brine pools in Nevada. "not anything but salt" seems to be wrong. "Chile is the leading producer, followed by Argentina. Both countries recover lithium from brine pools." from wikipedia | |
| 18 hours ago | comment | added | Woody | On Earth, salt deposits are not used for mining anything but salt. It is unlikely to be different on Mars. Mining low concentration ore is very resource intensive. It is usually less resource intensive to mine high concentrations, then move the product. "Why do you keep robbing banks?" "Well, your honor, that's where the money is." | |
| 18 hours ago | comment | added | FrogOfJuly | My concern with ore bodies is that even if they do exist, are rich and are distributed similarly to those on Earth it is still not enough for successful colonisation. Long range transportation is almost impossible on mars and thus only small areas around initial settlements are available. Moreover, they are available only for those settlements that are near, not for the others. | |
| 18 hours ago | history | edited | Woody | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
clarity
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| 18 hours ago | history | answered | Woody | CC BY-SA 4.0 |