Dawn on Mono Lake #2

by Sandra Bronstein

Title

Dawn on Mono Lake #2

Artist

Sandra Bronstein

Medium

Photograph - Photography - Fine Art Photography - Digital Art

Description

￿ 2013 Sandra Bronstein Photography. All Rights Reserved. Please note that no watermark shall appear on any purchased product.

Mono Lake is a large, but shallow, saline soda lake in Mono County, California near the town of Lee Vining which provides access to Yosemite National Park from the east. It is very old having been formed at least 760,000 years ago and has no outlet. This isolation causes very high levels of salts to accumulate in the lake making it very alkaline. Mono Lake is a desert lake which, oddly enough, has a very productive ecosystem based on the brine shrimp which are very prominent in its waters and provides critical nesting habitat for annual migratory birds which feed upon the shrimp.

When the city of Los Angeles, California began diverting water from flowing into the lake and into its Aqueduct System, the lake levels dropped substantially which, in turn, put the migratory birds into a state of peril. The Mono Lake Committee formed and won a legal battle which forced Los Angeles to partially restore the lake levels. Sitting at the base of the Sierra Nevada, Mono Lake is a mecca for tourists who wish to visit the eastern sierra area and Yosemite in the clear weather months when the passes over the mountains are open. Mark Twain's "Roughing It" which published in 1872 provides an early description of Mono Lake in its natural condition in the 1860's as "lifeless, treeless, hideous desert...the loneliest place on earth." Perhaps a visit to this area today would change his mind.

Uploaded

May 4th, 2013

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