“In the middle of the Algarve (near Loulé), a rock salt mine makes a trip to the depths of the Earth to visit the “Sea of Tethys” …

The site that is both a wonder of nature and human technique. It is a rock salt mine.

The adventure begins on the surface and requires proper care and safety equipment.

The journey into the mine begins at the “cage,” a tower-mounted elevator that was built on top of one of the mine’s access pits.

Then, to the depths of the Earth, it takes four minutes.

Four minutes of darkness, only broken by the beams of the mining lanterns.

When the elevator finally stops, we are 230 meters deep.
This is a descent made almost daily by Alexandre Andrade, technical director of the mine, who is perennial in ensuring that there is no safer and milder place.

The conditions are very stable inside this salt mine: the temperature remains at 23 degrees and the humidity is scarce.

But this is not just any mine, it is a unique geological monument that tells us the story of this place on Earth over the last 230 million years.

It is a place where you work hard and hard, with the passion of selfless miners.

But it is also a unique place in the country, where the history of the planet is engraved in the rocks.

It is therefore a must-visit place for all those interested in science.

When the hike begins, surprises lurk around every corner. Or rather, in each gallery.

Because everything here is rock salt: the floor, the walls, the ceiling.

Pink, compact and hard salt.

The other surprise is the size of the open corridors in the rock, which is over four meters high and about ten meters wide.

And since rock salt mining began here, nearly 40 kilometers of galleries have opened.

In front of the mine, where everything happens, the safety of the miners and the facility comes first.

The use of civilian explosives has been banned and, on the exploration front, salt dismantling is done by a brushcutter, which makes mining work very safe.

Until a few decades ago, all this salt went to the chemical industry that used it as a raw material for chlorine production.

Currently, its use is quite different.

The salt extracted from this mine is used for road safety, promoting the thawing of roads and animal feed as an additive to rations.

But in this immensity of galleries, there is room for other activities.

CUF knows that a mine like this is not only of interest to the industry.

It can – and should – be open to the community, which is why, each year, the Loulé rock salt mine is part of the “National Summer Geology Program” promoted by “Ciência Viva”.

Visitors are always welcomed by the technical director of the mine, who is keen to share his knowledge, satisfying the eager knowledge of the curious.

It is over a long journey of three hours that visitors learn that this saline dome was formed over a period of 230 to 150 million years.

And that, before that, this whole area was sea.

The continent was much further back, and there was a string of coastal lagoons set in a shallow embryonic sea – the Tethys Sea.

With the Earth’s natural movements, the whole landscape changed and this sea gave rise to the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean.

And the salt has been trapped under newer rock layers of limestone and sandstone.

Explanations aside, these miners’ daily lives are filled with salt extraction.

That is their mission.

Their life.

The salt, once disassembled and collected by the brushcutter, goes by truck for sieving and grinding.

It is the only transformation this raw material undergoes here.

The final granulation will depend on the intended purpose.

Only then is it loaded and sent to the surface.

Every year in this mine there is the capacity to extract up to one hundred thousand tons of salt.

At present this is not the value reached.

But at this rate, this saline dome beneath the city of Loulé still has salt for the next three thousand years of industrial exploration …”

(This was an email that I received from a friend and I just translated it. I tried to find the original source, but with no luck. So, if you own the rights to this amazing article, make sure everyone knows it. Best regards, ZT)