Salt-weathering is one of the main causes of rock disintegration in nature, particularly in deserts, polar regions and along coastlines. However, it is also a very widespread cause of damage to man-made constructions. Bridges, for example, are attacked by de-icing salts, and cities such as Bahrain, Abu Dhabi and Adelaide are affected by rising damp from high ground-water levels. Indeed, many examples of cultural heritage, including the Islamic sites of Bokhara and Petra in Jordan and the Sphinx in Egypt, may ultimately be destroyed due to the effects of salt-weathering.

Now Lourens Rijniers and colleagues at Eindhoven University in the Netherlands have developed a way to observe the solubility of various salts inside porous materials directly (Phys. Rev. Lett. 94 075503).

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