The Lake of Cemented Cauliflower

Fur trappers were the first non-Indians to discover the vast blue expanse of Mono Lake, formed at least 760,000 years ago. Situated due east of Yosemite National Park, it is famous for its many pillars that rise above the surface, a type of calcite limestone rock called tufa—described by one guidebook as “great towers of cemented cauliflower”—and for its Artemia monica, a tiny species of brine shrimp, found nowhere else in the world.

Mono Lake is cradled within an endorheic—that is, closed—basin that allows no outflow to rivers, or the ocean. Consequently, it is a “triple-water” lake, containing high levels of saline, soda, and sulfurous elements—making the water slick, slippery, and bitter tasting. After the 1848 California gold discovery, routes across the Sierra wound north or south of the lake—and few fortune hunters went there—possibly because, as Mark Twain later described it, the roughly 70-sqaure mile lake lies “in a lifeless, treeless, hideous desert.” However, pioneers who settled in the region ten years afterward discovered they could float on its buoyant surface, and that the water was well-suited to washing clothes without soap.

The salinity of the water—measured, in 2002, at 78 grams per liter, compared to the 31.5 grams per liter in the world’s oceans—is much too salty for fish. Nevertheless, Mono Lake teems with life. An estimated four to six trillion brine shrimp, each no larger than a thumbnail, inhabit the lake during the summer months. Alkali flies live along the shores, and lay eggs underwater. Both the shrimp and the flies are important food sources for an estimated two million migratory, and nesting, waterbirds. This includes 35 species of shorebirds, among them killdeer and sandpipers—and the long-legged American avocet, which spends much of its time wading and foraging in shallow water. Mono Lake has the second largest nesting population of California gulls, second only to Utah’s Great Salt Lake.

The whole food chain is based on the high population of single-celled planktonic algae present in the uppermost layer of water that receives sunlight. After winter runoff brings nutrients, the algae reproduce rapidly; and by March, Mono Lake looks like a huge cauldron of green soup. 

The area around the lake is currently geologically active, although the most recent volcanic activity related to the Mono-Inyo Craters erupted 350 years ago.