Four Extremes: Tufa Grove at Mono Lake

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 23:59:59 -800

Late in the day on Thursday we had driven far enough northward to see the tufa
grove at Mono
Lake. The lake sits at the end of the mountain watershed system,
which means that it's a big salty lake with no fish. Due to the LA DWP
draining the Owens river of its water, Mono Lake suffered greatly in the past
few decades, with the lake depth declining far enough to expose land bridges
and the stalagmites that used to be underwater! Because the whole area around
the lake is geologically active, lava near the surface will heat water to the
boiling point, causing them to carry minerals off the lake bed and towards the
surface. When the minerals settle on each other, they form tufa, which are
basically big hard hollow fumaroles. In addition to the fumaroles, there are
also a lot of flies. So many in fact that the lake beach seems to be dark
brown in color... but when you walk up to the brown it flies away, exposing
grey sand underneath. Gross. But it was pretty cool to see stalagmites
growing up out of a lake.