Perennial saline lake

Perennial saline lakes may also be important sites for evaporite formation, either around their margins or by subaqueous precipitation of evaporite minerals. For example, the Dead Sea now precipitates halite on its floor, beneath its lake water which has exceeded halite saturation, and about 400 years ago subaqueous carbonate laminites were also formed (Neev and Emery, 1967). The salinity of today s Dead Sea is approaching 350 gL-1 TDS (total dissolved solids), tenfold that of modem seawater. 

Lacustrine deposits (a) perennial saline lake, (b) salt crust or saline pan, (c) saline mudflat, (d) dry mudflat and (e) shoreline commonly arranged in sequence outwards from the centre of a lake basin (Figure 10.3B and Figure 10.4). 

Schubel, K.A. Lowenstein, T.K. (1997) Criteria for the recognition of shallow-perennial-saline-lake halites based on recent sediments from Qaidam Basin, western China. Journal of Sedimentary Research 67, 74-87. 

Layered chemical sediments may contain a variety of dissolution features produced by contact with undersaturated waters such as rounded or truncated crystal surfaces, rounded dissolution cavities, and vertically-oriented dissolution pipes (Fig. 3D and 3E). The frequency and nature of these syndepositional dissolution features may be used to distinguish perennial saline lake deposits from saline pan (ephemeral lake) sediments (Li et al., 1996 Schubel Lowenstein, 1997). In very shallow water (centimeters deep) to subaerially-exposed environments, layered halite crusts have little to no protection from incoming... 

Figure 10. Maximum homogcni/alion temperatures of lluid inclusions in halite (Th ,ax) versus depth from the top 90 m of the Death Valley core (lOOka-Oka, with uranium series dates shown on left) The plot represents a total of 2,328 homogenization temperature measurements Lacustrine halites, deposited in a perennial saline lake. 35 ka to 10 ka. have exceptionally low maximum homogenization temperatures which suggests brine temperatures 4°C to 15 °C below modern late April temperatures (From Lowenstein el al.. 1998. Fig. 8. p. 2.W).

Subaerial Halite Crust Perennial Saline Lake Ephemeral Saline Lake... 

A playa lake, following Briere (2000), is an arid-zone feature, transitional between playa and (perennial) lake, neither dry more than 75% of the time, nor wet more than 75% of the time. When dry, the basin qualifies as a playa. Playa lakes may be broadly equivalent to ephemeral lakes and saline lakes, in some regional terminologies. 

Valero-Garces, B. L. K. R. Kelts, 1995. A sedimentary facies model for perennial and meromictic saline lakes Holocene Medicine Lake basin. South Dakota, USA. J. Paleolim 15 123-149. 

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