Orca Basin

Takayanagi K, Wong GTE (1985) Dissolved inorganic and organic selenium in the Orca Basin. Geochim Cosmochim Acta 49(2) 539-546... 

Solution property Kara-Kul Lake Orca Basin brine Red Sea brine Bannock II brine Dead Sea... 

Not all measures of salinity convey the same degree of salinity. For example, compare Orca Basin, the Great Salt Lake, the Dead Sea, and Basque Lake (Table 5.1). All four of these waters contain about the same salinity % [25.1-26.4% salt (wt/wt)]. Note, however, that Basque Lake has a much more favorable (for life) aw (0.919) compared with Orca Basin (0.774), Great Salt Lake (0.776), and, especially, the Dead Sea (0.690). The impact of salts on life depends on the anions and cations and their charges and molecular weight. Bacterial sulfate reduction occurs with salt concentrations up to 24% (Oren 1988), but chloride salt solutions at such concentrations deals much more harshly with life. Only the most halophilic organisms can live in the Dead Sea (Table 4.2). The Dead Sea was called dead because it was only in 1936 that life forms (e.g., bacteria, algae, yeast) were first isolated from this hypersaline water (Ventosa et al. 1999). 

Property Seawaterb Seawater at -20°C Orca Basin, Gulf of Mexico0 Great Salt Lake, USAd Dead Sea, Israel Don Juan Pond, Antarctica1 Basque Lake, Canadad Mono Lake, USAd Lake Magadi, Kenya ... 

Anomalous enrichments of iron monosulfide in euxinic marine sediments and the role of H2S in iron sulfide transformations examples from Effingham Inlet, Orca Basin, and the Black Sea. Am. J. Set 299, 556-588. 

Van Cappellen P., VioUier E., Roychoudhury A., Clark L., Ingall E., Lowe K., and DiChristina T. (1998) Biogeochemical cycles of manganese and iron at the oxic-anoxic transition of a stratified marine basin (Orca Basin, Gulf of Mexico). Environ. Sci. Technol. 32, 2931-2939. 

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