A salt lake or saline lake is a landlocked

body of water A body of water or waterbody (often spelled water body) is any significant accumulation of water on the surface of Earth or another planet. The term most often refers to oceans, seas, and lakes, but it includes smaller pools of water such a ...

that has a

concentration In chemistry, concentration is the abundance of a constituent divided by the total volume of a mixture. Several types of mathematical description can be distinguished: '' mass concentration'', '' molar concentration'', ''number concentration'', ...

salt Salt is a mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride (NaCl), a chemical compound belonging to the larger class of salts; salt in the form of a natural crystalline mineral is known as rock salt or halite. Salt is present in vast quant ...

s (typically

sodium chloride Sodium chloride , commonly known as salt (although sea salt also contains other chemical salts), is an ionic compound with the chemical formula NaCl, representing a 1:1 ratio of sodium and chloride ions. With molar masses of 22.99 and 35. ...

) and other dissolved minerals significantly higher than most

lake A lake is an area filled with water, localized in a basin, surrounded by land, and distinct from any river or other outlet that serves to feed or drain the lake. Lakes lie on land and are not part of the ocean, although, like the much large ...

s (often defined as at least three

gram The gram (originally gramme; SI unit symbol g) is a unit of mass in the International System of Units (SI) equal to one one thousandth of a kilogram. Originally defined as of 1795 as "the absolute weight of a volume of pure water equal to th ...

s of salt per litre). In some cases, salt lakes have a higher concentration of salt than sea water; such lakes can also be termed

hypersaline lake A hypersaline lake is a landlocked body of water that contains significant concentrations of sodium chloride, brines, and other salts, with saline levels surpassing that of ocean water (3.5%, i.e. ). Specific microbial species can thrive in ...

s, and may also be

pink lake A pink lake is a lake that has a red or pink colour. This is often caused by the presence of salt-tolerant algae that produces carotenoids, such as ''Dunaliella salina'', usually in conjunction with specific bacteria, which may vary from lake t ...

s on account of their colour. An alkalic salt lake that has a high content of

carbonate A carbonate is a salt of carbonic acid (H2CO3), characterized by the presence of the carbonate ion, a polyatomic ion with the formula . The word ''carbonate'' may also refer to a carbonate ester, an organic compound containing the carbonate ...

is sometimes termed a

soda lake A soda lake or alkaline lake is a lake on the strongly alkaline side of neutrality, typically with a pH value between 9 and 12. They are characterized by high concentrations of carbonate salts, typically sodium carbonate (and related salt complex ...

. One saline lake classification differentiates between: *subsaline: 0.5–3

‰ Per mille (from Latin , "in each thousand") is an expression that means parts per thousand. Other recognised spellings include per mil, per mill, permil, permill, or permille. The associated sign is written , which looks like a percent ...

(0.05-0.3%) *hyposaline: 3–20‰ (0.3-2%) *mesosaline: 20–50‰ (2-5%) *hypersaline: greater than 50‰ (5%)

Properties

Salt lakes form when the water flowing into the lake, containing salt or minerals, cannot leave because the lake is

endorheic An endorheic basin (; also spelled endoreic basin or endorreic basin) is a drainage basin that normally retains water and allows no outflow to other external bodies of water, such as rivers or oceans, but drainage converges instead into lakes ...

(terminal). The water then evaporates, leaving behind any dissolved salts and thus increasing its

salinity Salinity () is the saltiness or amount of salt (chemistry), salt dissolved in a body of water, called saline water (see also soil salinity). It is usually measured in g/L or g/kg (grams of salt per liter/kilogram of water; the latter is dimensio ...

, making a salt lake an excellent place for salt production. High salinity can also lead to

halophilic The halophiles, named after the Greek word for "salt-loving", are extremophiles that thrive in high salt concentrations. While most halophiles are classified into the domain Archaea, there are also bacterial halophiles and some eukaryotic species, ...

flora and fauna in and around the lake; sometimes, in fact, the result may be an absence or near absence of multicellular life in the salt lake. If the amount of water flowing into a lake is less than the amount evaporated, the lake will eventually disappear and leave a

dry lake A dry lake bed, also known as a playa, is a basin or depression that formerly contained a standing surface water body, which disappears when evaporation processes exceeds recharge. If the floor of a dry lake is covered by deposits of alkaline c ...

(also called playa or salt flat). Brine lakes consist of water that has reached salt saturation or near saturation (

brine Brine is a high-concentration solution of salt (NaCl) in water (H2O). In diverse contexts, ''brine'' may refer to the salt solutions ranging from about 3.5% (a typical concentration of seawater, on the lower end of that of solutions used for ...

), and may also be heavily saturated with other materials. Most brine lakes develop as a result of high evaporation rates in an

arid A region is arid when it severely lacks available water, to the extent of hindering or preventing the growth and development of plant and animal life. Regions with arid climates tend to lack vegetation and are called xeric or desertic. Most ...

climate with a lack of an outlet to the ocean. The high salt content in these bodies of water may come from minerals deposited from the surrounding land. Another source for the salt may be that the body of water was formerly connected to the ocean. While the water evaporates from the lake, the salt remains. Eventually, the body of water will become brine. Because of the density of brine, swimmers are more

buoyant Buoyancy (), or upthrust, is an upward force exerted by a fluid that opposes the weight of a partially or fully immersed object. In a column of fluid, pressure increases with depth as a result of the weight of the overlying fluid. Thus the pr ...

in brine than in fresh or ordinary salt water. Examples of such brine lakes are the

Dead Sea The Dead Sea ( he, יַם הַמֶּלַח, ''Yam hamMelaḥ''; ar, اَلْبَحْرُ الْمَيْتُ, ''Āl-Baḥrū l-Maytū''), also known by other names, is a salt lake bordered by Jordan to the east and Israel and the West Ban ...

and the

Great Salt Lake The Great Salt Lake is the largest saltwater lake in the Western Hemisphere and the eighth-largest terminal lake in the world. It lies in the northern part of the U.S. state of Utah and has a substantial impact upon the local climate, particu ...

. Bodies of brine may also form on the ocean floor at

cold seep A cold seep (sometimes called a cold vent) is an area of the ocean floor where hydrogen sulfide, methane and other hydrocarbon-rich fluid seepage occurs, often in the form of a brine pool. ''Cold'' does not mean that the temperature of the see ...

s. These are sometimes called brine lakes, but are more frequently referred to as brine pools. It is possible to observe waves on the surface of these bodies. Man-made bodies of brine are created for edible salt production. These can be referred to as brine ponds.

List

Note: Some of the following are also partly fresh and/or brackish water. *

Aral Sea The Aral Sea ( ; kk, Арал теңізі, Aral teñızı; uz, Орол денгизи, Orol dengizi; kaa, Арал теңизи, Aral teńizi; russian: Аральское море, Aral'skoye more) was an endorheic lake lying between Kazak ...

* Aydar Lake * Bakhtegan Lake *

Caspian Sea The Caspian Sea is the world's largest inland body of water, often described as the world's largest lake or a full-fledged sea. An endorheic basin, it lies between Europe and Asia; east of the Caucasus, west of the broad steppe of Central A ...

Chilika Lake Chilika Lake is a brackish water lagoon, spread over the Puri, khordha and Ganjam districts of Odisha state on the east coast of India, at the mouth of the Daya River, flowing into the Bay of Bengal, covering an area of over . It is the bigge ...

Chott el Djerid Chott el Djerid ( ar, شط الجريد ') also spelled ''Sciott Gerid'' and ''Shott el Jerid'', is a chott, a large endorheic salt lake in southern Tunisia. The name can be translated from the Arabic into English as "Lagoon of the Land of Palms". ...

* Dabusun Lake *

* Devil's Lake *

Don Juan Pond Don Juan Pond is a small and very shallow hypersaline lake in the western end of Wright Valley (South Fork), Victoria Land, Antarctica, west from Lake Vanda. It is wedged between the Asgard Range to the south and the Dais Range to the north. On t ...

Garabogazköl The Garabogazköl (also spelt Kara-Bogaz-Gol; "Black Strait Lake"), or Garabogazköl Aylagy ("Black Strait Lake Bay"), is a shallow, highly-saline water-filled depression in the northwestern corner of Turkmenistan. It forms a lagoon of the Caspian ...

* Goose Lake *

* Grevelingen *

Laguna Colorada __NOTOC__ Laguna Colorada (''Red Lagoon'') is a shallow salt lake in the southwest of the altiplano of Bolivia, within Eduardo Avaroa Andean Fauna National Reserve and close to the border with Chile. Contents The lake contains borax islands, w ...

* Laguna Verde *

Lake Abert Lake Abert (also known as Abert Lake) is a large, shallow, alkali lake in Lake County, Oregon, United States. It is approximately long and wide at its widest point. It is located northeast of the small, unincorporated community of Valley Fal ...

Lake Alakol Alakol Lake ( kk, Алакөл, , from Turkic "motley lake") is a lake located in the Balkhash-Alakol Basin, part of the Almaty and Shyghyz regions, east central Kazakhstan. Its elevation is above sea level. The lake is the northwest extensio ...

* Lake Assal * Lake Balkhash *

Lake Barlee Lake Barlee is an intermittent salt lake. With a surface area of , it is the second largest lake in Western Australia. Description Lake Barlee is situated on the Yilgarn block southeast of Youanmi and north of Bullfinch, on the border betwe ...

Lake Baskunchak Lake Baskunchak (russian: Баскунчак; kk, Басқұншақ, translit=Basqunshaq) is a salt lake of 115 km² in Astrakhan Oblast, Russia, located at , about 270 km north of the Caspian Sea, and 53 km east of the Volga. Sinc ...

Lake Bumbunga Lake Bumbunga is a salt lake located in the Mid North of the state of South Australia, between the town of Lochiel and the farming locality of Bumbunga, approximately 1.5 hours' drive from Adelaide. It is a pink lake, with its colour due to ce ...

Lake Enriquillo Lake Enriquillo ( es, Lago Enriquillo) is a hypersaline lake in the Dominican Republic located in the southwestern region of the country. Its waters are shared between the provinces of Bahoruco and Independencia, the latter of which borders Hait ...

Lake Elton Lake Elton (russian: Эльтон; kk, Эльтон, translit=Elton) is a salt lake in Volgograd Oblast, Russia, near the border with Kazakhstan. It has an area of 152 km² and is about 0.1 m deep (in spring 0.7 to 0.8 m). Its surface is 18 ...

Lake Eyre Lake Eyre ( ), officially known as Kati Thanda–Lake Eyre, is an endorheic lake in east-central Far North South Australia, some north of Adelaide. The shallow lake is the depocentre of the vast endorheic Lake Eyre basin, and contains ...

Lake Gairdner Lake Gairdner is a large endorheic salt lake in the Australia, Australian state of South Australia, to the north of the Eyre Peninsula. When in flood, the lake is considered the third largest salt lake in Australia. Description Lake Gairdner i ...

Lake Hillier Lake Hillier is a salt lake, saline lake on the edge of Middle Island (Western Australia), Middle Island, the largest of the islands and islets that make up the Recherche Archipelago in the Goldfields-Esperance region, off the south coast of We ...

Lake Karum Lake Karum (also known as Lake Assale or Asale) is a salt lake in the Afar Region of Ethiopia. One of two salt lakes in the northern end of the Danakil Depression (the other one being Lake Afrera), it lies at -120m (-394ft) relative to sea leve ...

Lake Mackay Lake Mackay, known as Wilkinkarra to the Indigenous Pintupi people, is the largest of hundreds of ephemeral salt lakes scattered throughout the Pilbara and northern parts of the Goldfields-Esperance region of Western Australia and the Norther ...

Lake Natron Lake Natron is a salt or alkaline lake located in north Ngorongoro District of Arusha Region in Tanzania. It is in the Gregory Rift, which is the eastern branch of the East African Rift. The lake is within the Lake Natron Basin, a Ramsar Si ...

Lake Paliastomi __NOTOC__ Lake Paliastomi ( ka, პალიასტომი, also transliterated as Paleaostom) is a small lake near the city of Poti, Georgia, connected to the Black Sea by a narrow channel. Its surface area is 17.3 km2 and the mean depth ...

Lake Pontchartrain Lake Pontchartrain ( ) is an estuary located in southeastern Louisiana in the United States. It covers an area of with an average depth of . Some shipping channels are kept deeper through dredging. It is roughly oval in shape, about from w ...

* Lake Texoma *

Lake Torrens Lake Torrens ( Kuyani: ''Ngarndamukia'') is a large ephemeral, normally endorheic salt lake in central South Australia. After sufficiently extreme rainfall events, the lake flows out through the Pirie-Torrens corridor to the Spencer Gulf. Is ...

Lake Tuz Lake Tuz ( tr, Tuz Gölü meaning 'Salt Lake'; anciently Tatta — grc, ἡ Τάττα, la, Tatta Lacus) was the second largest lake in Turkey with its surface area and one of the largest hypersaline lakes in the world. It is located in the C ...

Lake Tyrrell Lake Tyrrell (also known as Lake Tyrrell Wildlife Reserve) is a shallow, salt-crusted depression in the Mallee district of north-west Victoria, in Australia. The name 'Tyrrell' is derived from the local Wergaia word for 'sky', the Boorong ...

Lake Urmia Lake Urmia; az, اۇرمۇ گؤلۆ, script=Arab, italic=no, Urmu gölü; ku, گۆلائوو رمیەیێ, Gola Ûrmiyeyê; hy, Ուրմիա լիճ, Urmia lich; arc, ܝܡܬܐ ܕܐܘܪܡܝܐ is an endorheic salt lake in Iran. The lake is l ...

Lake Van Lake Van ( tr, Van Gölü; hy, Վանա լիճ, translit=Vana lič̣; ku, Gola Wanê) is the largest lake in Turkey. It lies in the far east of Turkey, in the provinces of Van and Bitlis in the Armenian highlands. It is a saline soda lake ...

Lake Vanda Lake Vanda is a lake in Wright Valley, Victoria Land, Ross Dependency, Antarctica. The lake is long and has a maximum depth of . On its shore, New Zealand maintained Vanda Station from 1968 to 1995. Lake Vanda is a hypersaline lake with a salin ...

Larnaca Salt Lake Larnaca Salt Lake ( el, Αλυκή Λάρνακας, tr, Larnaka Tuz Gölü) is a complex network of four salt lakes (3 of them interconnected) of different sizes to the west of the city of Larnaca. The largest is lake ''Aliki'', followed by lake ...

* Little Manitou Lake * Loch Hyne * Lonar Lake *

Maharloo Lake Maharloe Lake ( fa, دریاچه مهارلو) is a seasonal salt lake in the highlands of the area of Shiraz, Iran. southeast of Shiraz, the lake salt is rich in potassium and other salts. Rudkhane-ye-Khoshk, a seasonal river flowing through th ...

* Mar Chiquita Lake *

Mono Lake Mono Lake ( ) is a saline soda lake in Mono County, California, formed at least 760,000 years ago as a terminal lake in an endorheic basin. The lack of an outlet causes high levels of salts to accumulate in the lake which make its water a ...

Nam Lake Namtso or Lake Nam (officially: Namco; mn, Tenger nuur; ; ; “Heavenly Lake” in European literature: Tengri Nor, ) is a mountain lake on the border between Damxung County of Lhasa prefecture-level city and Baingoin County of Nagqu Prefectur ...

Pangong Lake Pangong Tso or Pangong Lake (; ; hi, text=पैंगोंग झील) is an endorheic lake spanning eastern Ladakh and West Tibet situated at an elevation of . It is long and divided into five sublakes, called ''Pangong Tso'', ''Tso N ...

Pulicat Lake Pulicat Lagoon is the second largest brackish water lagoon in India, (after Chilika Lake), measuring . Major part of the lagoon comes under Tirupati district of Andhra Pradesh. The lagoon is one of the three important wetlands to attract nort ...

Qarhan Playa The Qarhan Playa or also misleadingly described as , is a playa in the Golmud and Dulan counties of Haixi Prefecture, Qinghai, China. Formerly a single unitary lake, it is now an expansive salt flat divided into four greater sections ( Dabu ...

* Redberry Lake *

Salton Sea The Salton Sea is a shallow, landlocked, highly saline body of water in Riverside and Imperial counties at the southern end of the U.S. state of California. It lies on the San Andreas Fault within the Salton Trough that stretches to the Gul ...

* Sambhar Salt Lake *

Sarygamysh Lake The Sarygamysh Lake, also Sarykamysh or Sary-Kamysh (, , ), is a lake in Central Asia. It is about midway between the Caspian Sea and the Aral Sea. It is the largest lake in Turkmenistan, in which three quarters of the entire lake's area is loca ...

* Sawa Lake *

Siling Lake Siling Lake (; ), (also known as Qilin) is a lake in the Tibet Autonomous Region, China to the north of Xainza. Doijiang is located near the lake. Administratively it belongs to Xainza County and Baingoin County of the Nagqu. Bangecuo is ano ...

South Hulsan Lake South or also known by other names, is a lake northeast of Golmud in Dulan County, Haixi Prefecture, Qinghai Province, China. A part of the Qarhan Playa, it lies east of Tuanjie Lake and south of North Hulsan Lake. Like the other lakes of th ...

Sutton Salt Lake Sutton Salt Lake in Otago, is New Zealand's only inland salt water lake.New Zealand also has one coastal salt water lake, Lake Grassmere, a lagoon with no direct outflow to the sea. It is located 10 kilometres west of Sutton, in the Strath T ...

Uvs Lake Uvs Lake ( mn, Увс нуур, Uws nuur, ; russian: Озеро Убсу-Нур, Ozero Ubsu-Nur; zh, 乌布苏湖, wū bù sū hú, pinyin: ''Wū Bù Sū hú'') is a highly saline lake in an endorheic basin— Uvs Nuur Basin in Mongolia with a ...

Gallery

File:Shiraz and areal.jpg, Astronaut's photo of Bakhtegan and Maharloo salt lakes near

Shiraz Shiraz (; fa, شیراز, Širâz ) is the fifth-most-populous city of Iran and the capital of Fars Province, which has been historically known as Pars () and Persis. As of the 2016 national census, the population of the city was 1,565,572 p ...

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

. Salt lakes are particularly common in Iran. File:Берег Эльтон с высоты птичьего полёта.jpg,

, Russia File:A118, Mono Lake, California, USA, 2004.jpg,

, United States File:Salt transport by a camel train on Lake Assale (Karum) in Ethiopia.jpg, Salt transport by a

camel train A camel train or caravan is a series of camels carrying passengers and goods on a regular or semi-regular service between points. Despite rarely travelling faster than human walking speed, for centuries camels' ability to withstand harsh condi ...

Ethiopia Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the ...

References

External links

* {{Authority control Endorheic lakes Shrunken lakes Salts

Properties

List

Gallery

See also

References

External links