Salt Pans is Edward Burtynsky's newest book in his acclaimed ongoing series of photographs exploring different industrialized landscapes across the world. Consisting of 31 aerial photos of the salt pans in the Little Rann of Kutch, India, the project is the result of months of intricate negotiations and preparations. These striking geometric images, taken in an intense ten-day period during which Burtynsky photographed from a helicopter, present the pans, wells and vehicle tracks as abstract, painterly patterns: subtly colored rectangles crossed by grids of gestural lines. And yet the reality behind the ironic beauty of Burtynsky's pictures is a harsh one. Each year 100,000 poorly paid Agariya workers toil in the pans, extracting over a million tons of salt from the floodwaters of the nearby Arabian Sea. Furthermore, receding groundwater levels, combined with debt, diminishing market values as well as a lack of governmental support, threaten the future of this 400-year-old tradition and the lives dependent on it. "The images in this book are not about the battles being fought on the ground, Burtynsky writes. "Rather, they examine this ancient method of providing one of the most basic elements of our diet; as primitive industry and as abstract two-dimensional human marks upon the landscape."

Travel & holiday guides.

This 1940 book, together with its companion volume, constitutes an attempt to outline the changing conditions of a fascinating region. The text is ambitious in scope, reflecting the author's position as a historical geographer, and covers a broad range of disciplinary perspectives, ranging from geology to socio-economic analysis.

This collection of essays chronicles the diversity and richness of one broad category of traditional material culture - fiber industries or textiles - among prehistoric and historic Native Americans in eastern North America. Such industries, which include basketry, fabrics, cordage, and netting, played an important role in the economic, social, and ceremonial life of indigenous cultures. However, because of the extreme age of the artifacts, their fragile nature, and unfavorable preservation conditions, knowledge of these industries has long been incomplete - resulting in a gap in scholarship that this volume does much to address.

This Research Topic is the second volume of the 'Community series-Extremophiles: Microbial Genomics and Taxogenomics'. Please see the first volume here. Extreme habitats exist across the globe and span over three quarters of our planet. They can be widely different from a physical-chemical perspective as they include diverse types of extreme, such as temperature, pH, salinity, radiation, pressure, low water activity, low nutrient availability, etc. Organisms capable of adjusting, surviving, or thriving in those habitats, which are so hostile that they were previously thought to be adverse or lethal for life, are called “extremophiles”.

Case studies examining the archaeological record of an overlooked mineral Salt, once a highly prized trade commodity essential for human survival, is often overlooked in research because it is invisible in the archaeological record. Salt in Eastern North America and the Caribbean: History and Archaeology brings salt back into archaeology, showing that it was valued as a dietary additive, had curative powers, and was a substance of political power and religious significance for Native Americans. Major salines were embedded in collective memories and oral traditions for thousands of years as places where physical and spiritual needs could be met. Ethnohistoric documents for many Indian cultures describe the uses of and taboos and other beliefs about salt. The volume is organized into two parts: Salt Histories and Salt in Society. Case studies from prehistory to post-Contact and from New York to Jamaica address what techniques were used to make salt, who was responsible for producing it, how it was used, the impact it had on settlement patterns and sociopolitical complexity, and how economies of salt changed after European contact. Noted salt archaeologist Heather McKillop provides commentary to conclude the volume. .