As Great Salt Lake’s levels continue to sag, yet another strange phenomenon has surfaced, offering Utah scientists more opportunities to plumb the vast saline lake’s secrets. Phragmites-covered mounds in recent years have appeared on the drying playa off the lake’s southeast shore. After several years of scratching their heads, University of Utah geoscientists, deploying a network of piezometers and aerial electromagnetic surveys, are now finding out what’s going on under the lakebed that is creating these reed-choked oases. Bill Johnson, a professor in the Department of Geology & Geophysics, suspects the circular mounds have formed at spots where a subsurface plumbing system delivers fresh groundwater under pressure into the lake and its surrounding wetlands. … One goal of Johnson’s research is to determine whether the groundwater can be tapped to restore broken lakebed crusts, thereby reducing dust pollution. 

Other Great Salt Lake news:

• The Salt Lake Tribune (Utah): A solution to the Great Salt Lake’s blowing dust might lie deep beneath its surface
• Citizen Portal: Utah awards $50M for Great Salt Lake water projects and habitat restoration