Salt of the Earth

Adam Longenbach

Lake Bonneville is ancient lake that, 17,000 years ago at its peak, was the size of current Lake Michigan. Due to climate change and receding glaciers, Lake Bonneville desiccated into two current but entirely separate entities: its waters, which we call The Great Salt Lake, and its residues, which we call the Bonneville Salt Flats. The precipitous materialization and dematerialization of the ancient lake has had lasting effects on a landscape in Northwestern Utah that is, to this day, still in the process of returning to its natural equilibrial state. Namely, the earth's crust, which is sustaining isostatic rebound from the removal of the lake's mass, and the basin's subterranean freshwater artesian aquifer, which is continually re-contaminated by residual lake salts that dissolve into its seasonal water cycle.

 As the crust continues to rebound, the salty alluvial deposits of Lake Bonneville are pushed upward and pass through the underground aquifer channels, perpetually corrupting its waters. When the aquifer surfaces on the basin floor through crustal fissures, the freshwater-turned-brine water evaporates, leaving behind its salts to recharge the Bonneville Salt Flats. This project posits that it will be at least another 40,000 years before the basin reaches isostatic equilibrium, at which point both the aquifer and the soil will have been purged of the ancient lake's pernicious salts.