Ashley Pope, Displace (AERIAL 2026)

Displace is an aerial photograph of a salt lake I found on my way to Lake Tyrrell in Victoria, Australia. I discovered this location by chance while stopping for a 'stretch of the legs. This salt lake just blew my mind when I first saw it, it is by far the best example of the convection phenomenon I have ever seen. Not only were the formations beautifully coloured in various shades of yellow and gold, the convections themselves I estimated to be between 5-10 meters in size, normally only found 1-2 meters in size. The convection phenomenon is believed to occur when surface evaporation leaves the near-surface groundwater enriched in salt and heavier than the fluid beneath it. Similar to hot and cold water circulating by convection, convection rolls of salty and less salty water form in the subsurface and when many convection rolls develop next to each other in the ground, they are "squeezed" together, and over time the resulting crust forms the raised humps and edges that create the honeycomb salt pattern.

Images have been resized for web display, which may cause some loss of image quality. Note: Original high-resolution images are used for judging.