Cankiri Salt Cave (Türkiye)
The millions of years of evaporation story of ancient basins that were once covered with water can be seen today in the underground salt galleries of Çankırı.
Located approximately 20 kilometers east of Çankırı, the
Salt Cave is one of the most remarkable evaporite formations in Anatolia. With
its galleries and salt masses formed by the exploitation of extensive
underground salt deposits in the geological past, the cave is an important
natural heritage site in terms of both economic geology and evaporite geology.
The rock salt deposits around Çankırı were formed in the geological past as a
result of evaporation in shallow and closed marine basins in the region. The
evaporation of seawater or lake water increased the concentration of dissolved
minerals; under certain conditions, first carbonates, then sulfates such as
gypsum and anhydrite, and in later stages halite (rock salt) precipitated. This
process was repeated for millions of years, resulting in the formation of thick
evaporite stacks. The white, gray, and sometimes orangish salt masses seen in
the galleries of the Salt Cave bear the traces of this long geological process
in the present day. Due to the relatively easy dissolution of rock salt,
groundwater circulation plays an important role in the development of caves and
cavities.
What makes Çankırı Salt Cave interesting is not only the
underground salt masses. The region offers the opportunity to observe the
relationship between evaporite formation, sedimentation environments,
groundwater-rock interaction, and economic geology all together. In this
respect, the cave is an important geological archive that contributes to
understanding past climatic and paleogeographic conditions.
Today, the Salt Cave is a place where geological processes
that took place over millions of years can be observed in galleries opened by
human hands, and where natural geological heritage meets the history of mining.
Reference: JEODERGİ, Haziran-Temmuz 2026, Sayı: 59, Sayfa: 51-52, TMMOB Jeoloji Mühendisleri Odası Yayını, Ankara, Türkiye
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