How did Australian plants deal with this salt prior to European colonisation?
Prior to clearing nearly all rainfall would have gone into the ground and been used by plants and trees. The roots of some trees go down 30 to 40 metres. They are very hungry for water so they don’t let anything drain through the root chain. Around about a cup of water per square metre was all that ever made it through and that would have been on an occasional basis. The salt was still there but it was kept at a depth where it wasn’t a great problem.
