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Tufa Study #1 Mono Lake Tufa State Reserve, CA Fantastic spires of stone, gleaming in the silvered moonlight, rise from the alien shores of a sluggish alkaline sea. The stars wheel silently overhead, looking down upon these still dark waters and upon the not-so-distant snow covered mountains of the Eastern Sierra. A few jarring reminders of civilization intrude upon this otherwise primeval landscape, as headlights crawl down distant highway 395 while above a seemingly endless parade of aircraft ply the skies. Still, it is very peaceful to photograph here - at night - in this oh-so eerie and surreal landscape. This is the first of a series of photos taken during a mid-October, 2004, road trip to the Mono Lake Tufa SR, near Lee Vining, California, and to the Volcanic Tablelands, near Bishop, California. Despite the early fall date, an early season storm had left much snow on the surrounding hills and in the passes leading to Mono Lake basin. The night here was quite cold, but at least it was calm. High winds, not uncommon here, would have made the photo session bitterly uncomfortable. Mono Lake is truly ancient, over one million years old, making it one of the oldest lakes in North America. The lake covers an area of about sixty square miles. Since the lake has no outlet, evaporation has served to concentrate the salts and minerals carried to the lake by fresh water, leaving it some two and a half times as salty and over eighty times as alkaline as sea water. The unique chemistry of the water has fostered the growth of incredible limestone tufa towers. Calcium-bearing freshwater springs well up from the floor of the lake where the calcium reacts with the alkaline lake water, forming calcium carbonate - limestone or tufa. Over time, these underwater deposits grow into fantastic shapes - towers, spires, and knobs. Falling lake water levels, most recently accelerated due to diversion of feeder streams into the Los Angeles aqueduct, has exposed many of these tufa towers. Although this lake would seem to be a dead sea, there is life here in incredible abundance. Green algae supports a food chain of brine shrimp and Alkalai flies. These in turn support massive numbers of migratory birds, including California gulls, Snowy plovers, phalaropes, and Eared grebes. Copyright © 2004 Jerry Day If you arrived here by search engine, click here to see the rest of site. |
DarkSkyDreams Night Photography by Jerry Day
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