<i> Derek: The world is full
of mysterious places</i> <i> you can see from high above
using Google Earth,</i> <i> but what's really going on
down there, and why?</i> <i> I'm Derek Muller, a scientist,
educator, and filmmaker,</i> <i> and I'm going to unearth
the stories</i> <i> behind these amazing places.</i> <i> Just drop a pin</i> <i> and I'm off.</i> <i> ( mysterious music )</i> <i> βͺ βͺ</i> I am here in the middle
of the Utah desert <i> surrounded by sandstone cliffs
and red rocks</i> <i> and this scrub.</i> But that is not
what I'm here for. What I'm looking for should be
right over this ridge. βͺ βͺ <i> There are electric blue ponds</i> <i> in the middle
of the Utah desert.</i> <i> When I saw them
on Google Earth,</i> <i> I had so many questions,
like what are they?</i> <i> Why are they here?</i> <i> And why do these colors
keep changing?</i> <i> One person thought
this might be</i> <i> a top-secret NASA experiment,</i> <i> since, after all,
you can see them from space.</i> <i> Someone else suggested,
"Well, maybe they're just
really large swimming pools."</i> <i> What are those?
What do you think?</i> Like a geo kinda thermal thing?
Like a solar thing? Like, they come up
from the ground? It's gotta be some sort of,
you know, science experiment
of some kind. They sort of look
like rice paddies, 'cause they're on ledges. <i> Derek: The truth is
far more fascinating</i> <i> than any of those guesses.</i> <i> These technicolor pools are
full of something</i> <i> that's been prized
throughout human history.</i> <i> What are they used for</i> <i> and how are they connected
to fireworks,</i> <i> George Washington, soap,
glass, Gatorade, gunpowder,</i> <i> a pioneering scientist
named Humphry Davy,</i> <i> every other person
on the planet,</i> <i> and lots of money?</i> ( birds crying ) <i> βͺ βͺ</i> <i> The answer begins with a pot
and a hardwood fire.</i> <i> This is
a 1,500-year-old recipe.</i> <i> Take some hardwood
and burn it,</i> <i> not for the heat,
but for the ash.</i> <i> Put the ash in a pot
and add water.</i> <i> Now, there are a lot
of different chemical
compounds in there,</i> <i> but the one I'm after is
water soluble,</i> <i> so it dissolves.</i> <i> Strain out the solids
and you'll find</i> <i> the solution is slippery.</i> <i> Put it in a pan
and let the water evaporate
in the sun,</i> <i> and what you're left with is
this crystalline substance.</i> All that work for this. <i> It is one of the most
important chemicals</i> <i> people have been making
for centuries,</i> <i> and it's called potash</i> <i> because that is
exactly where it comes from.</i> <i> In 1807,</i> <i> British scientist Humphry Davy
got some damp potash</i> <i> and put electrodes into it.</i> <i> Then he connected them
up to a battery,</i> <i> and what he observed was
the formation</i> <i> of tiny metal globules,</i> <i> and as they burst
through the crust
of the potash,</i> <i> they spontaneously
caught fire.</i> <i> Davy had discovered
a new element,</i> <i> so naturally, he named it
pot-ash-ium.</i> <i> Potassium.</i> Yes, that is where the name
of the element comes from. It comes from the potash. <i> βͺ βͺ</i> When you hear
the word potassium, many people think
of bananas or Gatorade, and that's true, these foods are
good sources of potassium, but it's not pure potassium. This is a piece
of pure elemental potassium. It's a metal,
but I can squish it with my fingers. And this had to be created
in a lab because it is so reactive,
it'll react with anything. This piece was kept submerged
under oil so it doesn't react
with the water
in the atmosphere. It's an incredibly
reactive substance, and to demonstrate that,
I'm going to put a piece of it in this water. <i> I'm gonna weight it down</i> <i> so the potassium doesn't
just sit on the top</i> <i> but actually will sink down
to the bottom.</i> Three, two, one. - ( pops )
- Oh, yeah! - ( pops )
- Oh! - ( pops )
- Oh, yeah! I did not expect it to do that. <i> That is awesome!</i> Are you kidding me? Yeah! <i> Of course,
I've seen this demo before,</i> <i> but never with
such a huge explosion.</i> ( in slow-motion )
Oh, yeah! <i> I think the key was
weighing it down</i> <i> so it didn't just spark
on the surface.</i> <i> Potassium reacts with water,</i> <i> forming potassium hydroxide
and hydrogen gas.</i> <i> It also releases
a lot of heat,</i> <i> so when the hot hydrogen gas
hits the atmosphere,</i> <i> it spontaneously combusts.</i> <i> Potassium is so reactive</i> <i> because it has one electron
in its outermost shell,</i> <i> which is easily removed,</i> <i> and that's why we never find
metallic potassium in nature.</i> Now, the word potash originally
referred to that stuff which, chemically,
is potassium carbonate, but potash has become
a catchall term referring to lots of
potassium-containing compounds. So the potash
that Davy was using was actually
potassium hydroxide. And this is not the last time
we're gonna hear from Davy. <i> But why is potash
so important to people?</i> I'm on the trail of Potash. Look at that. <i> βͺ βͺ</i> All right. This is bacon grease. <i> For centuries,
it was used in making soap.</i> <i> Take some animal fat,
add potash,</i> <i> and a chemical reaction
creates a primitive
liquid soap.</i> And look at that.
This is incredible. ( laughs ) I'm getting
a real lather going here. That's not bad.
Take a look at that. The potash soap
actually worked. <i> Potash was also used
to make glass.</i> <i> Glass is mostly sand,
silicon dioxide,</i> <i> but add some potash</i> <i> and you reduce
the melting point.</i> <i> This makes glass less brittle</i> <i> and easier to work with
in early furnaces.</i> <i> βͺ βͺ</i> <i> ( Western music )</i> <i> βͺ βͺ</i> <i> If you take
the potash solution</i> <i> and add bat guano or manure,</i> <i> crystals of a different
potassium compound form:</i> <i> potassium nitrate,
also called saltpeter,</i> <i> and it's one
of the core ingredients</i> <i> in fireworks and gunpowder.</i> <i> βͺ βͺ</i> Get ready. ( laughs )
That was awesome! <i> Saltpeter made from potash
infused gunpowder</i> <i> in the muskets and cannons</i> <i> of battles fought
in China, Europe,</i> <i> and the American revolution.</i> ( slow-motion explosion ) <i> Potash was by far
the main chemical product</i> <i> of the early American colonies</i> <i> and a substantial source
of revenue.</i> <i> By 1788,
there were 250 potash works</i> <i> in the state
of Massachusetts alone,</i> <i> places where wood was burned
on a massive scale</i> <i> just for its ash.</i> <i> In 1790, the newly-independent
U.S. government issued</i> <i> its first ever patent.</i> <i> It was for an improved process
for making potash.</i> <i> The patent office has now
issued over 10 million patents</i> <i> and the literal first one is
for potash.</i> <i> It was signed
on July 31, 1790.</i> <i> Look closely at the signature.</i> <i> It's signed by none other than
President George Washington.</i> <i> That should give you an idea
of how important potash was.</i> <i> The demand for potash was
so high</i> <i> that across Europe
and the eastern U.S.,</i> <i> forests were decimated.</i> <i> Unfortunately, it required
a huge amount of lumber</i> <i> to create just
a small quantity of potash.</i> Then in 1861 in Germany, they started
producing potassium from a different source. They found it not in plants
or any living organism, but in a rock. This is potassium chloride in its natural mineral form. <i> Now, this also gets
the name potash</i> <i> even though the name
originally referred to ash
in a pot, potassium carbonate.</i> <i> It changed everything.</i> <i> Germany established
a near monopoly
in the potash supply.</i> <i> They had so much of the stuff
that they started looking
for new uses.</i> Well, they did experiments
sprinkling this stuff
on farmers' fields, finding that this acts
as an excellent fertilizer. <i> That's because potassium,</i> <i> along with nitrogen
and phosphorous,</i> <i> help crops grow far larger</i> <i> and makes them
more drought-resistant.</i> <i> The downside was, in 1910,</i> <i> just four year before
the start of World War I,</i> <i> the Germans cut off
potash exports to the world.</i> <i> Their preemptive first strike</i> <i> was depriving the world
of potassium,</i> <i> something countries had
become dependent on</i> <i> to feed
their growing populations.</i> <i> The U.S. became so desperate
for other sources of potassium</i> <i> that in 1911,
Congress appropriated money</i> <i> to find domestic sources.</i> <i> Sites discovered
near Searles Lake, California,</i> <i> Carlsbad, New Mexico,
and Moab, Utah,</i> <i> became potash paydirt.</i> <i> ( inquisitive music )</i> <i> βͺ βͺ</i> <i> But the potash rocks weren't
on the surface.</i> <i> They were deep underground,</i> <i> so potash had to be mined out.</i> <i> βͺ βͺ</i> <i> But how did it get here
in the first place?</i> <i> I'm meeting Mike Coronella,</i> <i> a Moab guide who knows
the history of this area.</i> <i> βͺ βͺ</i> So the layer
that the potash is found in is called
the Paradox Formation, <i> and it was created
by an inland ocean</i> <i> that kept retreating,
returning,</i> <i> retreating, and returning.</i> <i> The water would evaporate
and leave behind salt</i> <i> and other evaporites
like potash.</i> Salt in the ground is
very much like an air bubble
in water. Geologically,
it wants to float. <i> It's literally pushing up
against the crust here.</i> And they used
to harvest it underground like coal, you know? Scraping it out, throwing it
on the narrow-gauge rail up to the surface. But salt also likes to trap
oil and gas, and there's oil and gas
in this area. And I believe it was 1963, as they were mining the potash,
they hit a pocket of gas and there was a big explosion,
major loss of life. <i> Derek:
This tragic explosion occurred</i> <i> at 4:40 in the afternoon</i> <i> on August 27, 1963.</i> <i> 18 men died.</i> <i> Investigators concluded,
the disaster was caused</i> <i> by the ignition
of combustible gas</i> <i> by electric arcs, sparks,
or an open flame.</i> <i> Miners' electric tools
or lights</i> <i> or, back in the old days,
candle flames</i> <i> could ignite the natural gas,
leading to huge explosions.</i> ( explosion pops ) <i> But there was
an invention made</i> <i> to prevent such explosions,</i> <i> an ingenious lamp.</i> <i> This wire mesh disperses
the heat from this flame</i> <i> rapidly enough to prevent
igniting the gas</i> <i> outside the screen.</i> <i> This is called the Davy lamp
after its inventor</i> <i> and also the discoverer
of potassium,</i> <i> Sir Humphry Davy.</i> Without the Davy lamp, the candles could ignite
methane in the mine. And if a mine is
full of methane and something ignites it, well, this is
what it looks like. Okay, guys.
Let's do it. <i> Producer: In three, two, one.</i> Wow. That was incredibly fast. Can I watch that back? <i> This footage is shot
at 1,000 frames per second.</i> <i> ( tense music )</i> <i> So it ignites down here
at the bottom,</i> <i> and once that spark
takes hold,</i> <i> all that gas is burning,</i> <i> and as it does,
it releases heat,</i> <i> which causes the gas
to expand,</i> <i> and so it accelerates</i> <i> through all the shafts
of the mine,</i> <i> getting faster and faster
all the way up to the top.</i> You know, unlike out here
in the atmosphere, where, you know,
combustion can dissipate and there's a lot of fresh air
that can rush in, in the mine, you just have
that methane gas. Once there's a single spark, <i> it basically sets
the whole place ablaze.</i> Mining is one of the most
dangerous professions, so if you don't have to go
down in a mine, it's better not to. <i> ( country music )</i> <i> βͺ βͺ</i> A year after
that fatal explosion in 1963, a mining company
based in Saskatchewan, Canada, stumbled upon a safer way
to mine potash. What they do at that mine is,
they pump water from the Colorado River
deep underground. It goes down 3,900 feet. That is where
the potash deposits are. Now, that water dissolves
the potash salt, so we get a briny solution
down here. Then they get forced
back up to the surface, where that brine solution is
pumped into these ponds. Here, the water evaporates
into the air, leaving you with that potash
that you wanted to get. In a sense, the water molecules
are like your little miners going in there
to get the potash out so you don't have to. These are the ponds
that we're looking at. <i> ( investigative music )</i> <i> βͺ βͺ</i> <i> It's a nice drone, man.</i> So you trust me
to fly this thing? I was thinking if we do
some dual operator. - Okay.
- So I can fly it. - Uh-huh.
- And you'll have full control
of the camera. <i> βͺ βͺ</i> Google Earth gives you
this bird's-eye view, right? <i> But you're so high, it's tough
to make sense of it.</i> but it's really from here that you can see
what these ponds are all about. <i> You have the hot Utah sun
and this dry air.</i> <i> So these are
evaporation ponds.</i> <i> They're evaporating
the water off</i> <i> to get to that salt,
to get to the potash</i> <i> which is in the water.</i> And it just looks so beautiful
from up in the air. <i> There are 23 ponds
spread over 400 acres,</i> <i> and it takes months
for each one to evaporate.</i> <i> There are 2 billion tons
of potash</i> <i> in the Paradox Basin alone,</i> <i> and at an average price
of $330 a metric ton,</i> <i> the potash harvested here
could potentially generate</i> <i> billions of dollars.</i> The color of these ponds
changes over time. A full, fresh pond is
a deep blue color, <i> but over time,
as that water evaporates</i> <i> and it gets shallower,
we see seafoam green ponds,</i> <i> and further along the line,</i> <i> you get these
sort of tan colored ponds.</i> Ultimately, when all the water
is gone, <i> you are left with this white
crystalline substance.</i> <i> That is the potash,</i> <i> and they scrape it up
with these vehicles.</i> <i> But if the potash crystals
are white,</i> <i> then why do these ponds appear
so blue?</i> The answer is in here. It is copper sulfate. See those
copper sulfate crystals? Well, if I add them
to the water, they dissolve, dying the water blue. So the copper sulfate is
in the water because it prevents the growth
of algae and other living organisms. Plus it's this dark blue color, which absorbs more sunlight,
more energy from the sun, and that helps the water
evaporate faster. <i> ( soft music )</i> <i> If you can believe it,</i> <i> fertilizer now supports half
of the world's population.</i> Every other person owes
their existence in part to innovations
like this: harvesting potash
and other minerals that are essential
for the growth of our food. <i> But increasing the efficiency
of growing food</i> <i> doesn't just mean this planets
can support more people.</i> <i> It also means
that they can explore</i> <i> different ways of life.</i> <i> You know, before the advent
of agriculture,</i> <i> when our ancestors lived
as hunter-gatherers,</i> <i> we spent all day every day
just finding food.</i> <i> But once we could grow
our own crops</i> <i> and these days,</i> <i> now that we can do it
so efficiently</i> <i> with the help of fertilizer,</i> that totally changes the game. It frees up most people's time
to do other things, to be artists and musicians and sports people
and science communicators. <i> So potash itself is
irreplaceable.</i> <i> It has helped us
make the modern world</i> what it is today. <i> And that's what
these blue ponds have to do</i> <i> with George Washington,
Gatorade, fireworks,</i> <i> Humphry Davy,</i> <i> every other person
on the planet,</i> <i> and untold riches</i> <i> and how gunpowder,
soap, and glass</i> <i> all came out of a pot</i> <i> that was filled with ash
and water centuries ago.</i> <i> In today's digital world,
few mysteries remain,</i> <i> but there are some.</i> <i> What is
this strange horse doing</i> <i> in the middle
of the British countryside?</i> <i> Why does this mountain look
like a person?</i> <i> And what is
this abandoned city</i> <i> off the coast of Japan?</i> <i> That's where I'm headed.</i>
I'm really conflicted on this video. I really like Veritasium, and this video does cover quite a lot of info. But the TV style editing is something I personally find utterly obnoxious, and almost completely unwatchable
tldw: These are evaporation ponds for potassium. Water is pumped through the earth underneath and dissolves potassium salt, after which the water gets evaporated out in these ponds. Copper sulfate is added to the water to color it blue, so more light can be absorbed for evaporation.
It's a decent video, but I don't like the tv style of answering the question in the end and giving unnecessary information. A video in a Tom Scott style would answer the question in at most 6 minutes.
I caught a glimpse of these once on a flight to San Francisco, always wondered what exactly they were.
Didn't watch the vid, so they might mention this: theres also an area with massive amounts of these in China. I was so puzzled when I saw it browsing the globe in Google maps one day. Thought I stumbled across some big secret. It looked like man-made square lakes in the middle of the desert. I considered for a bit that it was some sort of desert revitalization program. Nope, mineral extraction
Really enjoyed this one!
Love Veritasium.
Itβs Godβs color palette. God forgot to clean up.
I'm not sure what I would think if I just happened across this and didn't know what it was. My mind would probably shatter a bit.
YES, I was bored zooming in on random places through google earth and just stumbled upon this by complete luck dumbfounded on what this could possible be.