Huge Freshwater Reservoir Found Hidden Under The Great Salt Lake

Great Salt Lake It’s so named because of the salinity of its water, but a new study appears to have identified a large reservoir of unsalted freshwater hiding underneath.

Researchers from the University of Utah deployed a helicopter to conduct airborne electromagnetic (AEM) surveys of a portion of the lake, covering parts of the lake. farmington bay The area along the southeastern edge of the water.

AEM research does two jobs: It detects electrical conductivity, which helps separate salt water from fresh water, and it examines rock composition. This means that the data can potentially show where is the fresh waterand how deep it goes.

The team found that in the area studied, there was a sudden and significant decrease in the depth of the bedrock beneath the Great Salt Lake, leaving a large area for sand and silt that appeared to be saturated with fresh water.

“We were able to answer the question of how deep this potential reservoir is and what its spatial extent is below the eastern lakeshore.” says geophysicist Michael Zhdanov.

“If you know how deep it is, if you know how wide it is, if you know the pore space, you can calculate the potential volume of freshwater.”

Researchers predict that fresh water reservoir It may extend up to 3 to 4 kilometers (almost 2.5 miles), but it would require a comprehensive survey of the entire Great Salt Lake to be sure—only a small area of ​​it has been surveyed here.

IT was already suspected Fresh water may be hiding beneath the Great Salt Lake. reed covered islands It occurs all over the basin, but this is the first time researchers have tried to seriously assess how large the freshwater reservoir might be.

While the presence of freshwater was no surprise, the potential coverage was. The reservoir discovered by the AEM survey showed that the sediment-holding bedrock ‘bowl’ extends further into the centre. Farmington Bay Playa than expected.

The Great Salt Lake is expected to have some freshwater around its edges because it is fed by the surrounding mountains, but data shows there is much more freshwater in the lake’s approximately 2,500-square-kilometer (950-square-mile) extent.

“The unexpected part of this wasn’t the salt lens we saw near the surface across the playa,” Johnson said. explained recently on Utah radio station KPCW’s Cool Science Radio show.

“The fresh water underneath extends deep into the lake, possibly under the entire lake. We don’t know.”

Moreover, researchers think that this water may be beneficial: like the waters of the Great Salt Lake. continued to evaporatePollution from the remaining dust has become increasingly problematic for the health of surrounding communities.

This dust regularly blows into Utah’s urban areas, taking toxic metals with it. Some hydration with fresh water may help alleviate this.

“There are beneficial effects of this groundwater that we need to understand before we start extracting more of it.” says hydrologist Bill Johnson.

“Our first-order goal is to understand whether we can use this fresh water to wet hot dust spots and wet them in a meaningful way without disturbing the fresh water system too much.”

Researchers are currently trying to find funding to expand the scope of the AEM study and analyze more of the lake. In particular, they want to demarcate the sudden drop in bedrock levels.

This should give us a better idea of ​​how much freshwater could be stored here, and will also help with water supply planning and the search for other similar lakes around the world that may be hiding reservoirs.

Related: Strange Living Islands Appeared in the Great Salt Lake and Now We Know Why

Similar techniques can be applied in other areas in addition to the rest of the Great Salt Lake; magnetic readings can be combined to estimate rock depths and electrical conductivity readings to estimate freshwater areas.

“That’s why we need to survey the entire Great Salt Lake.” says Zhdanov. “Then we will know the top and bottom.”

“We use different techniques to examine the vertical extent of these freshwater-saturated sediments and find the depth of the basement.”

The research was published at: Scientific Reports.

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