Document Type

Article

Journal/Book Title/Conference

Water

Issue

8

Volume

15

Publisher

MDPI AG

Publication Date

4-11-2023

First Page

1

Last Page

18

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Abstract

The Great Salt Lake is a highly saline terminal lake with considerable fluctuations in water surface elevation and salinity. The lake is divided into two arms by a railroad causeway. River inflows enter the larger south arm, while the north arm only receives minimal surface runoff. Evaporation from both arms and limited exchange of water and salt through causeway openings result in complex water and salinity processes in the lake. The north arm is typically homogeneous and close to saturation. The south arm is typically stratified with periodic occurrences of a deep brine layer. This paper analyzes the lake’s long-term historical salinity and water surface elevation data record. Its purpose is to better document the movement of salt and changes to salinity in time and space within the lake and the occurrence and extent of its deep brine layer. This work is important because of the lake’s salinity-dependent ecosystem and industries as well as the role played by the deep brine layer in the concentration of salt and contaminants. We documented that the deep brine layer in the south arm is intermittent, occurring only when causeway exchange supports flow from the north to the south arms. We found that the overall mass of salt in the lake is declining and quantified this in terms of mineral extraction records and historical density measurements.

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