3/25/2023 0 Comments Natron salt for saleThe mineral mounds formed circular incrustations on the lake’s surface. “They seem to precipitate mirabilite that seals their plumbing.” But every time enough of the mineral obstructs the underwater seeps, another spring spews forth more mirabilite. “They tend to seal themselves off,” Milligan says of the underwater springs. As the mirabilite rises from the springs and crystallizes, it slowly cuts off the sulfate-rich font below. Mirabilite forms on the saltier north side, where it ordinarily flows out of underwater springs and dissolves into the water.īut last October the north side’s surface level was lower than usual, which allowed the mirabilite to lap up above the surface and crystallize, forming four terraces of the mineral-each up to three feet high and dozens of feet across-along the shore. The lake, a vast expanse of salinated water with a sprinkling of mercury and other minerals, is bisected by a railroad causeway that has created two distinct chemistries-one on the north side of the water, another on the south. The north side, where the mirabilite mounds formed, is saltier. It can look … like a slushie or something.” A railroad causeway splits the lake in two. “Mirabilite precipitates in the lake water, and it sort of gets washed ashore,” says Mark Milligan, a geologist with the Utah Geological Survey. The mineral’s name is mirabilite, or Sal mirabilis-“wonderful salt”-and it may provide clues about how life could exist on Mars. Last October, however, a veritable laboratory for life emerged from the lake’s depths, in the shape of salty, sulfate crystals. But while the ingredients for some life are there, the lake’s particular biochemical recipe makes matters difficult for its most familiar forms. The lake’s contents are less plain water than primordial soup of minerals: fundamental building blocks like calcium, magnesium, sulfate, and-perhaps obviously-sodium and chloride, which account for all the saltiness. Though it can appear static on its surface, Utah’s Great Salt Lake is anything but.
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