Solar Lake (Sinai). 1. Physical and chemical limnology1

Abstract

In Solar Lake, a basin at the edge of the sea filled with brine and shielded from the wind, a pycnocline builds up in September due to seepage of seawater to the surface. Solar heating produces a mesothermic temperature curve with a maximum up to 60.5°C at 2.5–3‐m depth and decreasing temperatures toward the bottom (40°C at 5 m). The temperature profile together with a supply of nutrients from seepage leads to the development of several bacterial plates and a benthic cyanobacterial bloom. A rapid development of anoxic conditions with up to 39 ppm H2S, a decrease in pH from top to bottom (8–6.9), redox potential gradients (+390 to −185 mV), and extremely pronounced light absorption are observed during the period of stratification which lasts from Sepember to July. With increasing solar energy, the seawater supply no longer compensates for the evaporation rate of 3.0 m yr−1 and the mesothermy becomes unstable. During a short period of holomixis, lasting from 4–13 weeks, the temperature is 27°C throughout the water column. The sediments of Solar Lake preserve a record of the last 4,600 years from the conditions of a marine lagoon to the development of the limnological cycle presented here.