Salty lakes hide deep Mediterranean.Geoscientists have discovered three lakes Three Lakes may refer to: Cities, towns, townships etc.
a salt solution used in the curing of meat. Standard ingredients are sodium chloride (15 to 30%) and sodium nitrate (0.15 to 1.50%) but many other ingredients may be added for special effects. brine shrimp see artemia. lying in pockets on the floor of the Mediterranean Sea Mediterranean Sea [Lat.,=in the midst of lands], the world's largest inland sea, c.965,000 sq mi (2,499,350 sq km), surrounded by Europe, Asia, and Africa. Geography The Mediterranean is c.2,400 mi (3,900 km) long with a maximum width of c. , southwest of the island of Crete. Such lakes could help explain why the Mediterranean is saltier than typical ocean water. The three brine lakes, situated more than 3,300 meters below the sea surface, were discovered in 1993 and 1994 by a team of European scientists conducting the Mediterranean Ridge The Mediterranean Ridge is a wide ridge in the bed of the Mediterranean Sea, running along a rough quarter circle from Calabria, south of Crete, to the southwest corner of Turkey, and from there eastwards south of Turkey, including Cyprus. Fluid Flow (MEDRIFF) project. Oceanographers had previously identified two other brine lakes in the Mediterranean during expeditions a decade ago. MEDRIFF researchers found the lakes using echo sonar, which sends down pulses of sound to probe the seafloor. The boundary between the dense brine fluids and the normal seawater seawater Water that makes up the oceans and seas. Seawater is a complex mixture of 96.5% water, 2.5% salts, and small amounts of other substances. Much of the world's magnesium is recovered from seawater, as are large quantities of bromine. above creates a flat lake surface that stands out amid the rougher surrounding seafloor. The density contrast prevents the brine from mixing easily with the seawater. The scientists focused attention on a horseshoe-shaped lake, called Urania Urania (y  rā`nēə): see Aphrodite; Muses. Urania muse of astrology. [Gk. Myth. , which had an average depth of 80 meters. At one end, the lake reached 200 meters deep. The chloride content in the Urania brine measured about 5 times that of Mediterranean seawater. The lakes formed when seawater dissolved deposits of salt-rich rocks along the seafloor. If many such lakes exist at the bottom of the Mediterranean, they could add salt to the seawater, perhaps explaining the Mediterranean's unusually high salt content, say the scientists. Current theories hold that high rates of evaporation produce the Mediterranean's extra salty waters. |
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