Brine mining isn't new, of course. Table salt is the canonical example of a metal compound extracted by evaporating brine, but there's a dozen other elements that are harvested at scale for profit from various brines: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brine_mining including Magnesium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brine_mining#Magnesium_and_mag... If you're in the bay area, you've seen a brine mine dozens of times: https:…
I've wondered about these salt evaporation ponds a lot. It's the traditional way sea salt has been harvested in Japan from the sea and also in the mountains of the Andes from mountain deposits of salt water. And it is still harvested industrially like that on some islands. The thing I'm really curious about is this is happening on a large enough scale does it begin to affect the amount of precipitation that can occur…
Particularly if they will then fill up with salt.