Day 2: The Cold Desert and the World's Most Revolting Protein Shake

Day 2 was largely a travel day as we drove along the Eastern edge of the Sierra from Donner to Bishop. I was in the Anchorvan which was as much fun as it sounds.


The Anchorvan kept a separate walkie talkie[1] which led to a rousing contest of ‘How many terms can you think of for throwing up?” Before long we had diverted from actual phrases and just started making things up. A couple of my favorites included: Technicolor Yawn and Porcelain Opera.[2]

But the day was not just Will Farrell quotes and explosive synonyms. We made one major content stop, at Mono Lake. I had driven by Mono Lake a couple times[3] but had never stopped. We parked a little less than a mile from the lake and walked through the famed ‘cold desert’[4] of the Sierra rain shadow to the Lake.

The objective of the walk was to observe a salinity tolerance gradient in the plant communities. Since LA decided to start taking water from Mono’s tributaries[5], the lake level has dropped, leaving the remaining water more saline and alkaline. This left concentric rings of vegetation where, with the vegetation rings closet to the lake being least diverse and most salt tolerant. But even in the most diverse rings, the vegetation was described as depoperate (with only 52 species, which, we were told, was fewer species than could be found in the average Davis lawn).

The lake is so saline that even at natural lake levels (and salinities) only two animal species are prevalent: the brine fly[6] and the brine shrimp. But what these species lack in diversity, they make up for in biomass. It is estimated that each year these two species account for 6 million tons of secondary production in Mono Lake (4 trillion brine shrimp alone) which makes it a hugely important breeding and feeding site for migratory birds. Apparently, every western migratory bird can be found at Mono Lake. These two little high salinity specialists constitute a startling percentage of the calories required for Western migratory avian activity.

Now, I heard 6 million tons, and thought, ‘that’s a lot’ but I didn’t know quite how much. There are so many brine flies in the lake that the shore is littered with brine fly larvae. On the hike out Professor Richards[7] found a rounded rock and said ‘there is no geologic process in this system that would result in a rock like this here.’ It was a grind stone. I accepted this uncritically, having spent several days with my grandfather on archeological digs in central New York and seeing many similar artifacts. But one of the other students asked the obvious question: “What were they grinding.” I was stunned. Of course they weren’t growing and grinding flour in the cold desert. But our guide had the answer that was as revolting as it was remarkable: brine fly larvae. He said that it was common to dry the brine fly larvae into a powder and then drink it like a protein drink mix.

Now, I know that I was supposed to be an ecologist on this trip, but I couldn’t help switching to geologist a few times as I walked through the dunes of a cold desert for the first time. I study river sediment processes, but am always intrigued by the similarities between river beds and deserts.[8] I saw really interesting armoring patters[9] and was introduced to the idea of biogenic dunes (dune morphology that is affected and stabilized by the plant community).

Finally, on the way out, we stopped at a standard roadside attraction to see the Mono Lake tufas. Tufas formed from volcanic venting of highly mineralized water when lake levels were higher. But more importantly, tufa is in a dead heat with ‘boudinage’ for the title of ‘most fun name for a geologic formation’. Seriously, name me a geologic formation that is more fun than ‘tufa’ or ‘boudinage.’

This post was written while listening to the Jon Forman Station on Pandora
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[1] All the vans had walkie talkies to communicate and organize a substantial caravan…and to occasionally play madlibs. But van 3 and 4 kept a separate channel for content-not-for-general-transmission.
[2] There was one involving Chewbacca as well that escapes me.
[3] En route to backpacking trips in the southern Sierras.
[4] Most of the world’s cold deserts are found in central Asia. The defining feature of a cold desert is that all of the precipitation happens when it is cold, and then sublimates, leading to very little infiltration. In the other deserts of the world, dramatic warm rains are rare and unpredictable, but they occur, which means that the plant communities can count on episodes of infiltration. This also leads to a lot of non-decomposed roots in the system since water does not reach them to start the decay process. One of the things that researchers are looking at is the extent to which this constitutes a carbon sink.
[5] This happened in 1941 and was stopped by a 1994 court ruling which required the city to stop pumping until the lake raised to a target level for ecological functionality. The lake is up 7’ since then with about 9’ left to go.
[6] Diptera Ephedradae – There are two interesting facts about this little extremophile. The first is that it can survive unusual salt contents, and the second is that the adults are covered in thick hairs that allow them to go back into the water and feed on algae without getting stranded on the surface.
[7] Our guide for the day and a man of startlingly broad expertise. He fielded questions on volcanic activity, tectonics, archeology, climatology, aeolian processes, despite, presumably, being a cold desert plan specialist. This is what I mean about Ecology being the last refuge for a generalist.
[8] It is essentially the same process except the fluid is much less dense in the non-aqueous environment.
[9] Dark minerals were concentrated in odd places. Usually dark minerals are heavier and concentrate in the troughs of the dunes, but these dark materials were low density volcanic and seemed to concentrate through ‘brazil nut effects.’