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Rock salt (halite) In common usage, salt is a mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride (NaCl). When used in food, especially in granulated form, it is more formally called table salt. In the form of a natural crystalline mineral, salt is also known as rock salt or halite.
Salts have long had a wide variety of uses and applications. Many minerals are ionic. [82] Humans have processed common salt (sodium chloride) for over 8000 years, using it first as a food seasoning and preservative, and now also in manufacturing, agriculture, water conditioning, for de-icing roads, and many other uses. [83]
Salt is found in the Earth's crust as the mineral halite (rock salt), and a tiny amount exists as suspended sea salt particles in the atmosphere. [36] These particles are the dominant cloud condensation nuclei far out at sea, which allow the formation of clouds in otherwise non-polluted air. [37]
The differences depend on from where the salt is from, how it's prepared, and its mineral content. While these factors don't affect the nutritional value of salt, they can change the flavor.
Salt domes are vertical diapirs or pipe-like masses of salt that have been essentially "squeezed up" from underlying salt beds by mobilization due to the weight of the overlying rock. Salt domes contain anhydrite , gypsum , and native sulfur , in addition to halite and sylvite .
Pink Himalayan salt has also become a consumer favorite because of its purported health benefits – it gets its hue from added minerals like calcium, magnesium, potassium and iron.
[15] [16] Table salt is more processed than sea salt to eliminate minerals and usually contains an additive such as silicon dioxide to prevent clumping. [15] Iodine, an element essential for human health, [17] is present only in small amounts in sea salt. [18] Iodised salt is table salt mixed with a minute amount of various salts of the element ...
The chemical abbreviation for sodium was first published in 1814 by Jöns Jakob Berzelius in his system of atomic symbols, [46] [47] and is an abbreviation of the element's Neo-Latin name natrium, which refers to the Egyptian natron, [42] a natural mineral salt mainly consisting of hydrated sodium carbonate. Natron historically had several ...