Salt lakes very often located in remote areas with extreme environmental conditions. Some of them are analogs of environments proxy for an earlier time in Earth’s history or extraterrestrial conditions (e.g. Mars). Russian science journalist Alexei Payevsky visited the saline desert area called Valley of the Moon (Valle de la Luna) in the Atacama Desert […]

Halophilic microorganisms have been a subject of study for many years due to their interesting diversity, genetics and physiology. Studies of halophilic microorganisms are one of the trending topics in saline lake research. On behalf of the International Organizing Committee it is with great pleasure for me to invite you to the 11th Conference on […]

Interesting paper by Argentinian scientists on ecosystems of High-Altitude Andean Lakes. “High-Altitude Andean Lakes” (HAAL) are pristine and have been exposed to little human influence. HAAL proved to be a rich source of microbes showing interesting adaptations to life in extreme settings such as alkalinity, high concentrations of arsenic and dissolved salts, intense dryness, large […]

We collect the major research papers and mass media news on shrinking saline lakes that were published in 2015. The map will be updated to monitor this worldwide problem.

Traditional review of research output on studies of saline lakes and salinity related questions. The Web of Science Core Collection is used as a database. The combined list of papers for topics “salt lakes”, saline lakes” and “salinity and lake” is the research output of the year. More details on the selected best papers are […]

Recently saline Mono Lake attracts a lot of attention and posts in different media. The reason is the drought in California that impacts the lake water level. The LA Times reported, “In recent months, the Department of Water and Power has reduced its take from [Lake] Mono’s tributaries by more than two-thirds. Still, the 1-million-year-old lake is […]

The Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO) and the Southern Azerbaijan Alliance convened a conference at the European Parliament, entitled ‘Lake Urmia – Humanitarian and Environmental Disaster in Iran’. Aimed at examining the potentially devastating and far-reaching consequences of the crisis surrounding Lake Urmia, the roundtable event also addressed the possible role the EU could […]

Detailed review on functional microbiology of soda lakes was published by Dimitry Sorokin with colleagues. Review summarizes results of studies of main functional groups of the soda lake prokaryotes responsible for carbon, nitrogen and sulfur cycling, including oxygenic and anoxygenic phototrophs, aerobic chemolithotrophs, fermenting and respiring anaerobes. The main conclusion from this work is that […]

The team of international scientists detected extensive salty groundwater networks in Antarctica using a novel airborne electromagnetic mapping sensor system called SkyTEM. The research provides evidence that the underground lakes and brine-saturated sediments may support subsurface microbial ecosystems. The findings shed new light on ancient climate change on Earth and provide evidence that a similar briny […]

It seems that our planet is close to the vast man-made drought. The reasons are climate change  as an anthropogenic impact, as well as hyper extraction of water for industrial and irrigation purposes. Saline lakes are extremely sensitive to both effects. The result is worldwide decline of saline lakes. The new research from Peking University and […]