click photo for full-size image
photo by Donald Kinney
The Owens Valley "water war" goes back to the late 1800's, and we can blame water-thirsty Los Angeles, 300 miles to the south, for building an aqueduct to divert Sierra streams that once flowed into Mono Lake. What was once a productive and fertile 100 mile long valley, is now a desert.
Steadily dropping over the years, Mono Lake reached its lowest level of 6372' in January 1981. Since that time, some agreement has been worked out with L.A. Water, and Mono Lake has been showing signs of slow recovery. In 2013 Mono Lake was at 6380', 8' higher than it was in 1981.
click photo for full-size image
photo by Donald Kinney
Mono Lake is a vital resting and eating stop for migratory shorebirds. Nearly 2,000,000 waterbirds including 35 species of shorebirds use Mono Lake to rest and eat for at least part of the year. Some shorebirds that depend on the resources of Mono Lake include American avocets, killdeer, grebes, phalaropes and sandpipers. Late every summer tens of thousands of Wilson's phalaropes and red-necked phalaropes arrive from their nesting grounds, and feed until they continue their migration to South America.
Mono Lake has the second largest nesting population of California gulls, second only to the Great Salt Lake in Utah. Snowy Plovers also arrive at Mono Lake each spring to nest along the remote eastern shores. Abundant supplies of small brine shrimp and "alkali" flies keep the birds well fed.
click photo for full-size image
photo by Donald Kinney
It is quite a science project, but what is going on here is the production of limestone. Tufa is a variety of limestone or calcium-carbonate, creating other-worldly spires and imaginative knobs, formed when freshwater springs interact with high concentrations of calcium and bicarbonate.
Throughout its long existence, salts and minerals have washed into the lake from Eastern Sierra streams. Freshwater evaporating from the lake each year has left the salts and minerals behind so that the lake is now about 2 1/2 times as salty as the ocean and very alkaline.
No comments:
Post a Comment