what do rock salt look like . and why do you crush it before you mix it with water thanks?

Answer 1

The lumps of rock salt I have look like slightly dirty lumps of glass but you can get samples which are perfect colourless cubes over 2" square. Table salt is made by rapid evaporation of a solution of rock salt which has been filtered through cloth filters rather then simple crushing. The rock salt has to be crushed before dissolving to increase the overall surface area of the salt. The more area in contact with the water the quicker the salt will dissolve.

Answer 2

The difference between rock salt and table salt is the size of the crystals. Table salt is simply salt crystals of varying sizes which have been crushed to a uniform size. Rock salt is simply salt in bigger crystal form than you are used to seeing, usually not ground down. You might say that table salt is high quality salt while rock salt is a lower quality because it contains more impurities, which is why it looks greyish instead of pure white. The reason you crush rock salt is to shorten the time to dissolve in water, by increasing the surface area exposed to water and reducing the grain size which take less time to dissolve. I have a salt mill, similar to a pepper grinder which uses rock salt. It uses a scraper to shave the large crystals. The shavings come out almost like powdered sugar and instantly dissolves.

Answer 3

Rock salt is crystalline - kinda looks like small quartz crystals. It won't dissolve properly in large pieces so it has to be ground down to a fine powder to enable it to full mix - else you'll get water with lumps of crystal in it.

Answer 4

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Rock salt is salt that is in crystals larger than that of table salt. You crush it, because the more surface area there is, the faster it will dissolve.

Answer 5

it looks like chunky salt (small cubes as the crystalline structure of salt is cubical), and if you crush it before mixing with water to increase surface area and therefore help it dissolve.

Answer 6

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what do rock salt look like . and why do you crush it before you mix it with water thanks?

Answer 7

Halite is the mineral form of sodium chloride, NaCl, commonly known as rock salt. Halite forms isometric crystals. The mineral is colourless to white, light blue, dark blue, and pink. It commonly occurs with other evaporite deposit minerals such as several of the sulfates, halides and borates.

Halite occurs in vast beds of sedimentary evaporite minerals that result from the drying up of enclosed lakes, playas, and seas. Salt beds may be up to 350 m thick and underlie broad areas. In the United States and Canada extensive underground beds extend from the Appalachian basin of western New York through parts of Ontario and under much of the Michigan basin. Other deposits are in Ohio, Kansas, New Mexico, Nova Scotia, and Saskatchewan.

Salt domes are vertical diapirs or pipe-like masses of salt that have been essentially "squeezed up" from underlying salt beds by mobilization due to the weight of overlying rock. Salt domes contain anhydrite, gypsum, and native sulfur, in addition to halite and sylvite. They are common along the Gulf coasts of Texas and Louisiana and are often associated with petroleum deposits. Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, Romania, and Iran also have salt domes. Salt glaciers exist in arid Iran where the salt has broken through the surface at high elevation and flows downhill. In all of these cases, halite is said to be behaving in the manner of a rheid.

Unusual, purple, fibrous vein filling halite is found in France and a few other localities. Halite crystals termed hopper crystals appear to be "skeletons" of the typical cubes, with the edges present and stairstep depressions on, or rather in, each crystal face. In a rapidly crystallizing environment the edges of the cubes simply grow faster than the centers. Halite crystals form very quickly in some rapidly evaporating lakes resulting in modern artefacts with a coating or encrustation of halite crystals. Halite flowers are rare stalactites of curling fibers of halite that are found in certain arid caves of Australia's Nullarbor Plain. Halite stalactites and encrustations are also reported in the Quincy native copper mine of Hancock, Michigan.

Category = Mineral
Chemical formula = Sodium chloride NaCl
Identification Color = clear or white; also blue, purple, pink, yellow, and gray.
Crystal habit = predominantly cubes and in massive sedimentary beds, but also granular, fibrous and compact.
Crystal system = isometric 4/m bar 3 2/m
Cleavage = perfect in three directions
Mohs Scale hardness = 2 - 2.5
Luster = vitreous
Refractive index = 1.544
Streak = white
Specific gravity = 2.1
Solubility in water Other Characteristics = salty flavor

Answer 8

Clear,white, muddy, all sorts, crystals from v. small to large lumps.
Crushing it to small particles simple makes it dissolve more quickly and thoroughly.