Salt Lake Alikes - Tigaki, Kos, Greece - Salt Pans and Mines on Waymarking.com

The most commonly known salt is sodium chloride (NaCl) as we use it daily to improve the taste of our food. But where do we get it from? (supermarket is the wrong answer). Near Tigaki (Tigkaki), in the direction of Marmari you will find the Salt Lake Alikes (Alikis, Alykes). Up to about mid of 20th century salt was produced in this lake (up to 20.000 centner annually). Now you will still see some salt on the bottom of the sea (picture), some of the former, old buildings and remains from the salt pans as well as special animals (e.g. flamingo) and plants (which need salt for growing). However, in this WM we will concentrate on the production of the mineral salt.

Fundamentals on sea salt production
Sea salt is obtained by evaporating of seawater. A saltern is used to collect sea water which is dilute brine. The concentration of the salt needs to be increased by evaporating of the water. This can be done by heating on fire. Then the concentrated slurry is washed with sea water so that mud and impurities (sea water contains many other kinds of salt which partly taste bitter) are settled out. Now the final evaporation follows e.g. over a fire. Wood or peat was commonly used in northern Europe. Here in Greece the natural sun delivers the heat for evaporation. Nowadays about 20-30% of the worldwide used salt is made from seawater.

Why was sea salt produced at the lake Alikes in Tigaki?
The salt lake in Tigaki is endorheic. An endorheic basin (also called terminal or closed basin) is a closed drainage basin that retains water and allows no outflow in other external bodies of water, such as rivers or oceans, but converges instead into lakes that equilibrate through evaporation (for example: Aral Sea, Caspian Sea, Etosha pan). Normally, the water of a lake flows out through rivers and ultimately ending up in the ocean. However, in Tigaki, the water of the lake Alikes can not leave this lake, in fact, the water of the ocean flows into this lake. As the water is constantly evaporating due to the heat from the sun, the concentration of salt is increasing resulting into dilute brine. This is the natural starting point for the production of sea salt.

What is still to be seen from the salt production?
At the coordinates you will find a bridge and two former machine buildings. You will also see the three water encroachments which were used to control the amount of sea water flowing into the lake. If you follow the road until its end and the water level of the lake is low you will see the remaining parts of the salt pans (salt evaporation ponds) especially lines of wood posts which formed the levees used to separate the pans (my photo was taken in October). Those salt evaporating ponds (also called saltern or salt pan) are shallow artificial ponds. The sea water was fed into those ponds and water was drawn out through natural evaporation which allows the salt to be subsequently harvested.

Unfortunately, there is no information board with explanations at the lake. So I wrote some more information in the text above.

Kind: Salt Evaporation Pond Is the place still active?: no

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