WORLD’S
NATURAL SALTIEST POND
DON JUAN POND
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ESPITE
being in Antarctica, the
Don Juan Pond doesn’t freeze! And that too when temperatures hover around - 500C.
Don Juan
Pond is a small, extremely salty, ankle-lake located in the McMurdo Dry Valleys
of Antarctica, nestled I Wright Valley between the Asgard Mountain Range and
the Olympus Mountain Range. The pond was discovered in 1961 and pilots Lt John
Hickey who discovered it.
Don Juan
Pond is the saltiest natural body of water on Earth with a salinity level of
over 40%, which is around 18 times saltier than the ocean. Or some eight times
as salty as the Dead Sea. Although the lake is located n one of the coldest
regions of Antarctica, it is so salty that it never freezes even when the surface
temperature drops to -500 C during Austral winter, making it one of
the unique places for the investigation of habitability n extreme conditions n
earth and possible for life on Mars.
The major
solute in the pond is calcium chloride salt (CaCl2). Earlier it was
believed that the salinity of the pond was contributed by the ground water.
However, according to a study published in Nature Publishing Group’s open
access journal, Scientific Reports,
the pond gets its salt from precipitation.
The
researchers explained the process of deliquesce during which, when the
humidity in the air spikes, surface salt near the pond absorbs the available moisture.
Those water-loaded salts then stream through the loose soil until they reach
the permafrost layer beneath. There they stay until the occasional stream of snow
melt washes the salts down the channel and into the pond.
And this
is how the world’s saltiest natural water body is able to remain liquid in one
of the coldest and driest places on earth.
Head and Dickson
from Brown University approached Antarctica as a model for the cold, dry desert
of Mars. According to them Don Juan Pond could tell us something about the
possibilities of flowing water on Mars, both in the pas and in the present.
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