Why is the Great Salt Lake salty?

Answer 1

The Great Salt Lake is salty because it is endorheic...that is, it has no outlet to release water except for evaporation. As a result, mineral salts accumulate over time, resulting in either a very salty body of water (the Aral and Dead Seas and the Great Salt Lake) or extensive salt flats (Such as Bonneville in Utah).

Answer 2

omgg i have an answer!! either its connected to the ocean, or a giant person with a giant bucket of salt dumped all the salt there OR The water flowing into the lake from the mountains carries dissolved mineral salts that have been removed from rocks and soils along the way. After the water enters the lake, there is only one way out - evaporation. As the water evaporates, it leaves behind the salts it brought into the lake, thus increasing the salinity of the lake water. It is estimated that more than 2 million tons of salts are added to the lake each year. As a result, the Great Salt Lake is one of the saltiest bodies of water in the world, with only the Dead Sea, on the border between Jordan and Israel, having a higher salinity. Depending on the lake level, the salinity of the lake in historic times has ranged from about 27% (7.7 times as salty as ocean water) to about 5% (1.4 times as salty).

Answer 3

The water on top evaporates, leaving the the salt it contained behind. This process repeats, and the brine continues to more salty.

Answer 4

Add to the previously stated evaporation mechanism, the fact that there was probably a huge flood of seawater that swept over the land. Its the only plausible reason that you find whale and mammoth skeletons in the same place in Utah. Check out this website for more into: http://www.sentex.net/~tcc/index.html

Answer 5

The evaporation is greater than the fresh water entering the lake.