Mono Lake Research Paper

High in the Sierra Nevada mountains, there is Mono Lake, which is a large but secluded lake tucked away in a depression in the ground a few miles away from the nearest road. At first glance, it may seem like just another normal lake, but it is home to a bizarre, otherworldly landscape that was created when water from fresh water springs underneath the lake mixed with the lake’s salty, alkaline water, forming deposits of limestone. Near the south shore of Mono Lake, grotesque towers of rough, porous limestone called tufa rise out of the lake’s tranquil waters. These tufa were formed when fresh water springs bubbled up into the lake, leaving behind mineral deposits which over thousands of years formed these giant towers of limestone. After the lake’s water level dropped nearly fifty feet after water was diverted from the lake, most of the tufa …show more content…
From a distance, the rough limestone of the tufa looks almost soft, like a sheep’s wool. The tufa on the shore, some of which precariously tower up to thirty feet, take many different shapes and form clusters resembling ancient ruins. In the water near the shore, which is only a few inches deep, there are flat layers of limestone where fresh water springs bubble up, slowly forming new tufa. In some places, these flat rocks are stained red by iron deposits from the springs. Some smaller tufa rise out of the lake a few feet from the shore. The shore is scattered with fragments of limestone, ranging from large rocks to pebbles to some as tiny as grains of sand, broken off of the tufa by the weather. Shrubs and grasses adapted to living in the dry ground sparsely populate the area around the lake, forming islands of green in the whitish gray limestone gravel covering the ground. The lake’s calm, glassy water, is tinted a murky green by algae. In it, tiny brine shrimp which have evolved to survive in the extremely salty and alkaline conditions of the lake feed on the algae in the water. In