Mono Lake: Streams Taken and Given Back, But Still Waiting

Mono Lake lies at the western edge of the Great Basin desert and the eastern scarp of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, just east of Yosemite National Park. An isolated remnant of Pleistocene Lake Russell, the lake is set in a volcanic basin, with crater islands pushed up from beneath the lakebed adding to the scenic surroundings of mountain and desert vistas. Covering an area of about 70 square miles, the lake is renowned for limestone tufa towers emerging from underwater around the shores, and the throngs of birds that come to feed on abundant brine shrimp (Artemia monica) and alkali flies (Ephydra hians). This ancient volcanic-tectonic lake, estimated at more than 700,000 years old, has passed through long histories of glaciation and expansion, drought and contraction, and in modern times has set historic legal precedence for the protection of ecological values of terminal lakes.