

This specific salt is called gypsum salt, and it varies from table salt because it contains sulfur instead of sodium. Most cyanobacteria rely on photosynthesis to survive, but this one uses some of the salt that makes up the crust of the Bonneville salt flats instead. One example is cyanobacteria, capable of using a sulfide to make up for its lack of photosynthesis. There are thriving bacterial communities in the top layers of the salt flats, so it’s not completely uninhabitable.

This leaves behind its characteristic salt. Water pools in the rainy season and evaporates. A playa is a parched, plant-free part of a desert basin with no continual water sources. The Bonneville salt flats in Utah are a saline playa.

Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah The Bonneville salt flats are part of a lifeless playa in Utah. What are 10 of the most uninhabitable places on earth? 10. However, not all of the earth is livable, and some places are naturally hostile toward anything but the most basic of life forms. We think of Earth as a kind of life harboring spaceship catapulting through the cosmos.
