Large tufa mounds, Searles Lake, California

Mounds that have formed around spring vents occur in a variety of environmental settings, many at sites generally difficult or inaccessible for sampling. In contrast, over 500 tufa mounds occur in the dry bed of Searles Lake, California. The mounds range from minor features to 45 m in height; most are 5 to 12 m high. These mounds, composed of calcite and aragonite, formed associated with spring vents in the Pleistocene lake bottom. Thus, analyses of these mounds in Searles Lake provide a model with regard to the origin and architecture of tufa mounds. The mounds consist of four distinctive tufa facies. The initial deposits consist of porous tufa, including the innermost (porous 1) and the outermost (porous 2) deposits, followed by nodular tufa, then columnar tufa, and laminated crusts. There are two simple sequences of tufa deposition. The first sequence is from porous 1 to nodular to laminated crusts and, finally, to porous 2. A second sequence consists of: porous 1 to columnar to laminated crusts and, lastly, to porous 2. Facies changes are a response to changes in environmental conditions from deep water (porous 1 facies) to an essentially dry lake phase (during and after the formation of laminated crusts facies), to deep water (porous 2 facies) and, at the present time, totally dry. The primary constituents that comprise the tufa deposits include thin laminae, pisoids, spherulites, peloids and stromatolite-like crusts. On the microscopic scale, these constituents dominantly make up nano-spheres, micro-rods and rod-like crystals, as well as other calcified bodies. These constituents are interpreted to be the calcified remains of bacterial bodies. These findings suggest that microbial participation in the construct of other mounds should be a major concern of investigation, both for terrestrial and extraterrestrial spring-fed mounds.