Why Utah is updating its answers to common questions about the Great Salt Lake

Estimated learn time: 6-7 minutes

Editor’s word: This text is printed by the Nice Salt Lake Collaborative, a options journalism initiative that companions information, training and media organizations to assist inform folks concerning the plight of the Nice Salt Lake — and what could be performed to make a distinction earlier than it’s too late.

SALT LAKE CITY — The Nice Salt Lake attracts a whole lot of 1000’s of tourists yearly even when it is a shell of its previous self.

For example, greater than 115,000 folks have already visited the Nice Salt Lake Marina State Park this yr, whereas one other three-quarters of one million folks have visited close by Antelope Island, per Utah Division of State Parks information up to date by the tip of September. These visitation statistics do not embrace the bays on the lake’s jap edge, which additionally draw scores of much more folks.

And folks typically deliver questions concerning the lake with them as a result of, properly, it is fairly distinctive. There aren’t many terminal saline lakes on the earth, and definitely not the scale of the Nice Salt Lake. This long-standing curiosity resulted within the Utah Geological Survey publishing a booklet known as “Generally Requested Questions About Utah’s Nice Salt Lake And Historic Lake Bonneville” in 1996, as a method to reply all of the questions folks routinely have concerning the lake.

It solutions all the things from questions concerning the lake’s depth to its ecosystem and its chemical composition.

Nevertheless, the scale of the lake has drastically diminished in 26 years, dropping from its historic common of about 4,200 toes elevation in 1996 to a report low of 4,188 toes this yr. Consultants say the decline is a mix of ongoing drought circumstances and tasks that divert the lake’s tributaries from reaching the lake.

The decline has uncovered a whole lot of sq. miles of the lakebed. The Utah Division of Water Assets reported earlier this month that whereas the lake decline has stabilized for the winter, a brand new report low is anticipated once more subsequent yr.

The booklet’s cowl is hardly recognizable. It is an aerial photograph of Antelope Island taken in 1988, two years after the lake reached its highest degree on report. Water ranges have dropped a lot that wildlife businesses started putting in fences to stop animals from attending to or leaving the island as a result of it isn’t a lot of an island anymore.

Scientists and historians have additionally discovered a lot extra concerning the lake over the previous 26 years that the booklet was in want of an replace. Mark Milligan, a geologist with the Utah Geological Survey, defined that the company deliberate to replace the booklet for a while nevertheless it prioritized a second version when the lake reached report lows over the previous two years, prompting all types of recent often requested questions.

“It got here to the highest of the checklist as a result of the lake has modified a lot since 1996, and it is such a subject of curiosity proper now,” he stated.

The second version of the booklet is now out there; the company started promoting it at its Pure Assets Map & Bookstore this week. It prices $8.50 for a print copy, although there’s a web-based model out there at no cost.

The replace addresses the collapse of the Nice Salt Lake and different latest findings which provide a greater understanding of the lake at this time. That stated, it doubtless would not paint an entire image of the well-known physique of water as a result of there’s nonetheless loads of analysis taking place to reply much more questions.

“We hope that folks (achieve) a larger appreciation and its significance to all points of recent Utah — from the wildlife to the recreation to the mineral extraction industries to the brine shrimping industries,” Milligan provides.

What’s new within the second version

The record-low lake ranges — and the influence that has on the lake — are the plain variations between the primary and second editions; nevertheless, microbialites, or bioherms, are an ideal instance of how researchers are nonetheless understanding completely different sides of the Nice Salt Lake. These are sedimentary deposits on the backside of the lake which can be likened to a “dwelling rock” within the booklet.

Milligan notes that these had been recognized up to now solely as a result of they’d been uncovered within the early Nineteen Sixties, which is when the lake reached its earlier record-low previous to 2021. Whereas recognized, researchers did not spend a lot time researching them earlier than the lake ranges returned to regular. The record-low ranges now have helped researchers get a greater understanding of how they issue into the lake’s ecosystem.

The booklet’s authors delineate that bioherms inhabit “about one-fifth of the lakebed,” making it the “largest expanse of those ‘dwelling rocks’ on Earth.” They provide an ideal nesting spot for brine flies to put larvae on.

“The brine fly larvae graze on algae rising on the lake ground and so don’t straight compete with brine shrimp for meals that eat algae suspended within the water,” they wrote. “The larvae then grow to be pupae that connect to a tough substrate. After just a few weeks, the adults emerge from the pupae casing, soak up, metabolize, and entice gasoline bubbles, and float to the floor.”

The booklet additionally factors out that mirabilite crystals turn out to be extra seen by the lake when the lake ranges are low, one thing discovered from new analysis.

The lake needs to be appreciated for what it’s. It is an incredible useful resource.

–Mark Milligan, geologist with the Utah Geological Survey

Then there are the completely different colours of the lake, which is a phenomenon brought on by completely different salinity ranges north and south of the present railroad causeway that was constructed in 1959. The northern arm usually turns a reddish-pinkish colour as a result of it holds extra salt than the southern arm. In 2020, the northern arm’s salinity ranges bounced between 27% and 29%, whereas the southern arm’s ranges solely reached as excessive as 16% — as a result of freshwater tributaries dump into the southern arm, the authors of the booklet word.

This wasn’t the case earlier than as a result of the salinity ranges are about the identical when the lake ranges are increased.

The authors even clarify that, no, there aren’t fish within the lake. That stated, there was a quick time within the Nineteen Eighties that rainwater killifish invaded the water by Stansbury Island till the lake water fell once more and its salinity elevated, killing off the species.

There’s additionally extra details about the Spiral Jetty within the booklet. Whereas Robert Smithson accomplished the 1,500-foot-long and 15-foot-wide rock artwork close to Corinne in 1970, it shortly disappeared when the Nice Salt Lake’s water ranges rose. It is now arguably the image of the lake’s receding water ranges, even turning into the state’s official work of land artwork in 2017.

“It reappeared a few times — just a little bit — within the ’90s, after which from 2002 on it has been uncovered,” Milligan stated. “That wasn’t within the unique (version) as a result of it had been underwater for more often than not.”

Why there’ll doubtless be extra editions sooner or later

Researchers are solely starting to seek for options to assist the drying lake. Congressional arms authorized a pair of payments that intention to review options for the Nice Salt Lake and Nice Basin saline lakes earlier this yr.

The Utah State College Quinney Faculty of Pure Assets can be on the case, amongst different native establishments, which can assist Utah lawmakers give you laws that impacts what the lake seems to be like now.

It doesn’t matter what occurs sooner or later, Milligan stated it is doubtless that there will probably be one other version of the e book to doc the modifications.

“The lake needs to be appreciated for what it’s,” he stated. “It is an incredible useful resource.”

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