A small seep rich in alkaline salts encrusts the floor of this canyon below the cliffs of Dead Horse Point in Shafer Basin west of the town of Moab, Utah. As is much of the region surrounding Moab, the Shafer Basin is underlain with thick deposits of mineral evaporates such as potash which were deposited on the floor of an ancient inland sea hundreds of millions of years ago. A similar geological process is occurring today on the Bonneville Salt Flats of western Utah. A large potash mining operation nearby injects water into this formation using deep wells and then pumps the briny solution to the surface where it evaporates in large ponds thus concentrating the minerals. This photograph was captured on 6x7 format film. All photos in these galleries may be ordered as fine art framed prints or for stock photography usage.