Why is mono lake so salty

As with most lakes, Mono Lake has a chemistry unique in all the world. In contrast, the Great Salt Lake contains abundant chloride but relatively no carbonates. Mono Lake is also rich in borate and potassium boron concentrations among the highest ever recorded for a lake. Mono is one of the few remaining inland lakes in the Great Basin, a large geographical region with no outlet to the ocean.

Mono Lake, Great Salt Lake in Utah, and Lake Abert in Oregon are the last few large hyper saline lakes in the Great Basin that host productive ecosystems and large numbers of migrating birds. High concentrations of carbonates in Mono Lake make it very alkaline.

Image of the Day Water. EO Explorer. Mono Lake, California. At the time of publication, it represented the best available science. Image of the Day for January 13, View more Images of the Day:. You might also be interested in view all.

In December , scientists of he NASA located organisms in the sludge of the Mono Lake, which inert arsenic in their cell metabolism. Website: www. Detailed Data. DE EN. Please choose Living Lakes America Mono Lake. Become a Member.

Threatened Lake America Network Canada. Network Latino America. It' s a word from the native americans Paiute language for the famous alkali fly they collected to eat.

The lake is easy to find: If you reach the T-cross at the end of the , you have to turn left and drive 2,5 miles before you see the roadsign for the Mono Lake Tufa State Natural Reserve. There is a picnic area and a parking lot and you have to go only meters to reach the shoreline with it's dramatic tufa towers. It's a breathtaking panorama with bizarre rocks, pines, volcanoes, tufa towers and a lot of gulls, grebes and little black alkali flies under a glittering blue sky and the Adobe Hills at the horizon.

If you're on the, you're in the middle of whats once was the lakebed of Mono Lake. Beginning in the Mono Basin was impacted settlers they build canals to take water from the Mono Lake. Their sheeps and cattles damaged streambanks and vegetation, but the great damage comes in with the extension of the Los Angeles Aqueduct to the Mono Basin.

Four new creeks drying up the streams below the diversion dams, the lakelevels sinks dramatically and the Mono Lake lost half its volume. At the same time the Mono Lake Committee starts his fight for the rights of mother nature to live by it's own rules. They try to save the Mono Lake, this 40 km wide desert basin 2, meters above sea level, where no fish lives, but a lot of worldwide unique animals like the brine shrimp "Artemia monica", small as a thumbnail and endemic to the lake.

Put your finger into the water and lick with your tongue to understand the wonder of life. Mono Lake water is 2.