Great Salt Lake

Great Salt Lake, oh man what an experience. First off it smells like the bay, all of the time and has man-easting gnats and mosquitoes. Aside from those to two things it is amazing, especially Antelope Island. It was absolutely beautiful the water was crystal clear, the hills of the island were very smooth and grassy it felt like we were in a different country, a lot different then the rest of the west I have seen. Swimming in the water felt like I was on a different planet. The moon and the stars were out and so bright you could almost touch them. Your body is so buoyant you feel weightless it is definitely an experience.

The Great Salt Lake is the way it because rivers (Bear, Jordan, and Weber Rivers) and stream flow through surround limestone collecting salts and then depositing them in the lake, since there is no outflow to the river the water evaporates and leaves behind the salt. This has been happening for about 45,000 years when Great Salt Lake was a part of the much larger Lake Bonneville, which created the Bonneville Salt Flats. This cycle has lead to a salinity peaking at about 28% which is remarkable because the ocean is only about 3%. Even though this is a natural processes it is starting to be researched wether humans are increasing the salinity because treated waste water which still can contain salts is pumped into the rivers which lead to Great Salt Lake.

Due to such high salinity no life form exist in the lake except brine shrimp and brine flies. This may sound like a barren waste land but the brine shrimp and flies attract millions of birds every year. Another advantage to the lake is that it is mined for magnesium, calcium, and sodium and the salt can be used in fertilizers or salt licks. The main problem is that since there is no life in the lake the lake bed is very still this allows pollutants to become trapped in the under it. If the lake bed is disturbed the pollutants will be put back into solution severely polluting the lake.

Picture Citations:

"Antelope Island." Anthony Sarnoski. 2011.