Climatology of evaporites

Evaporites require solar heating to crystallise in either marine or non-marine-fed groundwater sumps. Accordingly, evaporites often indicate hot, arid climatic belts (deserts) on the earth’s surface. This section discusses the assumption that thick salt deposits require particular conditions and an assumption that evaporites tend to form in what is known as Hadley cells. We shall also look at climatic controls in the present icehouse earth and greenhouse mode climate at the time of the last supercontinent (Pangaea).

• • Hadley cells and the world’s deserts
  

• • Quaternary climate and aridity
  

• • Pangaean climate and super-aridity
  

Predicted temperature belts in 2100 (NASA)