On March 14th we went to Storr's Lake and Salt Pond and WOW, those places were gross. I had a ton of fun there but it was really gross. Before we walked into the lake we took a few samples of some water that was next to the lake. The reading of the salinity of the water there was 13 parts per thousand (ppt). There was almost no oxygen in the water, the reading was 6.3%. The density was higher than fresh water. We could see through this water but when we actually went into Storr's Lake the water was a greenish brown that you couldn’t see through. It was a foot or two deep and you couldn’t see your feet. There was sulfur-reducing bacteria within the layers in the sediment at the bottom of the lake so there was a smell of rotten eggs when you dug in the sediment. We took a salinity reading in the lake and it was 60 ppt, which was a lot saltier than the ocean (which is on average 35 ppt). It contained more oxygen and had a basic pH which allows carbonates to form. The temperature was 26.5 degrees Celsius or about 80 degrees Fahrenheit which was decently warm. There was red mangrove (they aren’t actually red, they are green). Fish in the lake are thought to feed on the furry rocks called microbialites. The lake was cut off from the ocean approximately 2500 years ago, which I thought was interesting. We studied microbialites which are rocks made from single celled organisms. They form a hard crust on the bottom and had rocks made of carbonate. In the future, the high organic matter in the lake could potentially form petroleum, which is cool. We then went to Salt Pond which was also gross and smelled like rotten eggs. There wasn’t any hard crust so you immediately sunk into the mud. The mud was completely dark black with a grey top layer. The black in the mud was due to a lack of oxygen (anoxic). There was multiple large stones on the shore that we stepped on to avoid the mud. We took the temperature and it came up it 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit). Salt Pond earns its name because our reading came up >100 ppt salinity. I had a lot of fun at this spot, as gross as it was, it was one of the most memorable sites on this trip.
This post contributed by Cole S.
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