Great Salt Lake microbiology: a historical perspective

Abstract

Over geologic time, the water in the Bonneville basin has risen and fallen, most dramatically as freshwater Lake Bonneville lost enormous volume 15,000–13,000 years ago and became the modern day Great Salt Lake. It is likely that paleo-humans lived along the shores of this body of water as it shrunk to the present margins, and native peoples inhabited the surrounding desert and wetlands in recent times. Nineteenth century Euro-American explorers and pioneers described the geology, geography, and flora and fauna of Great Salt Lake, but their work attracted white settlers to Utah, who changed the lake immeasurably. Human intervention in the 1950s created two large sub-ecosystems, bisected by a railroad causeway. The north arm approaches ten times the salinity of sea water, while the south arm salinity is a meager four times that of the oceans. Great Salt Lake was historically referred to as sterile, leading to the nickname “America’s Dead Sea.” However, the salty brine is teaming with life, even in the hypersaline north arm. In fact, scientists have known that this lake contains a diversity of microscopic lifeforms for more than 100 years. This essay will explore the stories of the people who observed and researched the salty microbiology of Great Salt Lake, whose discoveries demonstrated the presence of bacteria, archaea, algae, and protozoa that thrive in this lake. These scientists documented the lake’s microbiology as the lake changed, with input from human waste and the creation of impounded areas. Modern work on the microbiology of Great Salt Lake has added molecular approaches and illuminated the community structures in various regions, and fungi and viruses have now been described. The exploration of Great Salt Lake by scientists describing these tiny inhabitants of the brine illuminate the larger terminal lake with its many facets, anthropomorphic challenges, and ever-changing shorelines.

Domes, Rings, Ridges, and Polygons: Characteristics of Microbialites from Utah’s Great Salt Lake

“…This paper provides an introduction to the basic morphology of these unique structures and how local environmental conditions, as well as periods of exposure and erosion, contribute to growth location, grouping, shape, size, orientation, and internal structure. Several other research groups are exploring other important aspects including mineral precipitation mechanisms Pace et al, 2016), biogeochemistry/microbiology (Lindsay et al, 2016;Baxter, 2018), and possible age of formation and paleoenvironmental record (Newell et al, 2017;Vennin et al, 2019).…”

“…Locations of photographs from subsequent figures are shown; lake bathymetry is fromBaskin and Allen (2005) andBaskin and Turner (2006). The inset graph shows elevation of GSL through recorded history,1847-2018 (USGS, 2019.…”

Prediction of the calcium carbonate budget in a sedimentary basin: A “source‐to‐sink” approach applied to Great Salt Lake, Utah, USA

“…Microbial mats and microbialites are common in GSL (e.g. Baskin et al, ; Baskin et al, ; Baskin et al, ; Baxter, ; Bouton, Vennin, Boulle, et al, ; Chidsey et al, ; Newell et al, ; Vanden Berg, ) and likely play an important role in calcium sequestration. Characteristic of these benthic organosedimentary systems is the copious production of extracellular polymeric substances (EPS), which bind cations, notably Ca 2+ (Braissant et al, ), depleting the ambient water of this cation (Dupraz & Visscher, ).…”

“…Recent renewed interest in the GSL has focused on constraining mechanisms of microbial carbonate deposition (e.g. Baskin, Driscoll, & Wright, ; Baskin, Driscoll, & Wright, ; Baskin, Wright, Driscoll, Graham, & Hepner, ; Baxter, ; Bouton, Vennin, Boulle, et al, ; Bouton, Vennin, Mulder, et al, ; Chidsey, Vanden Berg, & Eby, ; Della Porta, ; Lindsay et al, ; Newell, Jensen, Frantz, & Vanden Berg, ; Pace et al, ; Vanden Berg, ; Vennin et al, ), as analogue to those that partly make up the Cretaceous presalt reservoirs (Abelha & Petersohn, ).…”

Isolation and diversity of sediment bacteria in the hypersaline aiding lake, China

“…Hypersaline lakes are considered extreme environments for microbial life. A variety of salt lakes have been surveyed for bacterial diversity such as Chaka Lake in China, Chott El Jerid Lake in Tunisia, Meyghan Lake in Iran, Keke Lake in China, and Great Salt Lake in the United States [ 5 , 13 – 16 ]. In addition, groups of novel halophilic or halotolerant bacteria in salt lakes have been described using culture-dependent methods: Actinopolyspora lacussalsi sp.…”