Talk:Saloum Delta National Park

Question....

An aerial view of this park was featured on the Bing search site today. There are many holes in the ground filled with liquids of different bright colors. They look like rainbow of paint pots! What causes that brilliant phenomena? That's what I came here to find out, but there;s no mention of it. Thank you, Wordreader (talk) 08:57, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Hello, Wordreader. I don't know what Bing search feature you're referring to, but I can see a National Geographic photo here [1]. Not much text tho, and Wikipedia can't use the photo. A New York Times travel article is somewhat more helpful: "...into the Palmarin nature preserve...We weaved our way through an otherworldly landscape of salt pits, huge craters dug by local villagers — mostly women — who harvest the crystalline hunks that cling to the earth as water evaporates. Each pool has a different hue. Some are the color of melted butter, others deep ocher, still others in shades of pistachio and peach, a bizarre and mesmerizing palette created by soil, minerals and microscopic plants."[2] But that refers to a separate nature preserve, although it sounds as though it's within the Saloum Delta, if not in this national park. The current bright red hue of Palmarin nature reserve means there's no WP article at this time. Unfortunately my French isn't good enough to create that. But a mention could, I think, go into the Saloum Delta article. There's probably more discussion of the color phenomenon in French, alas. Thanks for reminding me of those photos - visual treats that I'd thought were some dreadful effect of pollution and now it seems they're natural. Regards, Novickas (talk) 21:35, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for the explanation - those pits are beautiful from the air and otherworldly. This is Bing - it's a search engine developed by Microsoft as competition to Google. They feature a gorgeous new photograph every 24 hours with several hotspot links for further information on the topic and for related topics: http://www.bing.com/ In the lower right corner are toggles in order to see the images from the last seven days. Unfortunately, the image from the park from the 16th of March is no longer visible. It was similar to the one you linked to above, but brighter and clearer. This is a screenshot of the Bing page from that day (the colors are not as clear and lively): http://www.educatornetwork.com/Resources/LearningActivities/Details/6eefdfc3-440e-4b7c-b2a4-b706887270f4 As you can see, the photograph is © Bobby Haas/Getty Images, a company that aggressively protects its copyright. He's the same photographer that took the National Geograhic photo. Here's the park own page from UNESCO: http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1359 Thank you, Wordreader (talk) 01:39, 25 March 2015 (UTC)