ISS image of Mono Lake, where arsenic and abundant life both exist. Image Science and Analysis Laboratory, NASA-Johnson Space Center.

Mono Lake is usually in the spotlight for photographers, birders, and those seeking solutions to balanced water needs in California. You don’t see many geochemists, astrobiologists, or NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory staff plying Mono’s shoreline. However, they certainly have been around over the years, and it seems that Mono Lake is getting a little more attention due to it harboring an arsenic-eating microbe. The greater implication for our understanding of life here and elsewhere is exciting … but don’t conclude that Mono Lake is a toxic, arsenic-saturated lake!

There is arsenic in Mono Lake, but it’s (more…)

News of NASA’s recent ground-breaking finding that a bacterium, discovered at Mono Lake, could eat and grow on a diet of arsenic instead of phosphorus, has the Mono Lake Committee office buzzing with phone calls and emails from around the world. The implications for this information are astounding….

See the details in this morning’s  New York Times article.

This new BBC article is also quite good.

You can also watch the press conference here at 11:00am Pacific time for the latest news.

Tufa towers at Mono Lake in California's Eastern Sierra.

UPDATE: December 2, 2010: The press conference is over and the news is huge. See all our coverage of this major announcement here!

Today NASA announced a press conference that will discuss

“an astrobiology finding that will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life. Astrobiology is the study of the origin, evolution, distribution and future of life in the universe.”

Internet discussion is abuzz and many speculations expect the announcement to include Mono Lake, in particular discussion of arsenic-loving bacteria within the lake, perhaps a newly discovered species. We’ll wait for the announcement, but Mono Lake’s bacterial residents may well reveal that entirely new and unexpected forms of life are possible on other planets.

More news as we hear it. The press conference is scheduled for December 2, 2010 at 2:00 pm Eastern Time (that’s 11am to us Mono Lake folks). Oh, and though many media reports are saying Mono Lake is within Yosemite National Park, don’t forget that the lake actually lies just outside the popular park, right in the heart of the Mono Basin National Forest Scenic Area!

Previous discussion in The Mono-logue: Mono Lake and the shadow biosphere

On the Internet: ‘Life as we don’t know it’ discovery could prove existence of aliens

The Mono Basin National Forest Scenic Area Visitor Center has closed for the winter and will reopen on April 1, 2011.

In the meantime, you can stop by the Mono Lake Committee Information Center & Bookstore every day from 9:00am to 5:00pm. For information about wilderness permits and trail conditions, you can call the Mammoth Lakes Visitor Center, which is open from 8:00am to 5:00pm daily: (760) 924-5500.

ISS image of Mono, Walker, Tahoe, Pyramid lakes with Western Nevada and California to the Pacific. Image Science and Analysis Laboratory, NASA-Johnson Space Center. "The Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth."

NASA recently reported that Earth’s largest lakes have warmed in response to climate change. While Mono Lake is not a data point in this study, its neighbors to the north—Pyramid Lake and Lake Tahoe—reveal a small upward trend in warming. In December 2009 NASA revealed that Mono Lake, among other lakes in the region, was warming (more…)

On Wednesday, December 1 the Mono Lake Committee Information Center & Bookstore and the Mono Lake Committee offices will be closed all day for our annual staff retreat. On Thursday we will be open as usual from 9:00am until 5:00pm.

From all of us here at the Mono Lake Committee, thank you.

On this Thanksgiving Day, we feel thankful for your generous donations, faithful support, views of our website, comments on our Mono-logue posts, visits to our Lee Vining headquarters, phone calls from far away, emails asking about our work, and above all, for your love for Mono Lake. Thank you and happy Thanksgiving.

Eared Grebes pepper Mono Lake's surface in this view through a spotting scope. Photo by Bartshe Miller.

Researcher Sean Boyd with the Pacific Wildlife Research Center recently finished tallying up the results of the October 13th Eared Grebe survey on Mono Lake. No easy task, since the only way to come up with an accurate estimate is to laboriously count the tiny grey specks in each of about 500 aerial photos of the lake surface. Once Mr. Boyd has converted the raw numbers to densities (#/km²), adjusted for scale, and extrapolated based on the current surface area of the lake, he can provide a final count.

This year the survey resulted in a total of (more…)

Last night at around 8:00pm the blustery winds of our first big winter storm gave way to a peaceful evening lit by a full moon. Though at first we were daunted by the prospect of digging my car out of eight inches of snow, OE Instructor Rosa and I decided we had to take advantage of the clearing weather and the fresh powder. (more…)

Thursday was my last day in the field before a well-advertised storm was to drop 1–3 feet of snow in the Mono Basin. As I drove down to Rush Creek, the winds were picking up, snow was blowing off Sierra peaks, and lenticular clouds graced the late-afternoon skies.

Rush Creek bottomlands, a day before the storm hit.

The Los Angeles Department of Water & Power (DWP) had just lowered the flows in Rush Creek and Lee Vining Creek, and I was checking to see if certain side channels were still flowing, as well as checking on a few other things before the expected deep snow made travel to the streams difficult. (more…)