An investigation into the relationship between salt weathering debris production and temperature

An investigation using laboratory simulation has been made using air temperature data for Tunisia, Antarctica, and southwest England. An experiment with a 50 cycle run produced results which showed significantly greater debris production in the Antarctica and Tunisian simulations than in the southwest England simulation. Using X-ray analysts to determine salt penetration, an inverse relationship between salt penetration and debris production was seen to exist. This could be the result of evaporation in the Tunisian simulation and rapid freezing in the Antarctic simulation, concentrating salts in the upper layers of the rock samples. In the southwest England simulation, no freezing, and relatively high humidities allowed greater penetration, thus distributing an equal input of salt over a greater area. The author tentatively suggests the possible existence of a parabolic relationship between salt weathering and temperature.