The Isotope Composition, Nature, and Main Mechanisms of Formation of Different Types and Subtypes of Salt Lakes in Transbaikalia

Abstract

Abstract —More than a hundred lakes, groundwater, rivers, and precipitation of their catchments have been studied in Transbaikalia. The chemical composition of natural waters and the mineral composition of rocks and lacustrine bottom sediments have been analyzed. The isotope composition of waters, the isotope ratios in dissolved and deposited carbonates and in bacterial mats, and the content of heavy oxygen in the aluminosilicate fraction of bottom sediments and rocks in catchments have been determined. It is shown that all secondary minerals inherit the oxygen isotope composition of water, but their oxygen is isotopically much heavier than the water oxygen, because the water–rock interaction leads to the fractionation of oxygen and the transition of its heavy isotope into secondary carbonates and aluminosilicates. Bacterial mats using oxygen of carbon dioxide ions for their vital activity are also enriched in its heavy isotope. We have established that the water of soda lakes, being less saline than other lake waters, is more enriched in heavy oxygen isotope. Mineral analysis of lacustrine bottom sediments and material from sedimentation traps revealed chemogenic carbonates and secondary aluminosilicates. The performed thermodynamic calculations confirm their possible formation in lakes. It is shown that the lake water is in equilibrium not only with carbonates, clays, and hydromica but also with zeolites, and the most alkaline and mineralized water is in equilibrium with albite. The bottom sediments of soda lakes have a greater portion of clays and carbonates than those of fresh, chloride, and sulfate waters. The enrichment of salt lake waters with heavy isotopes is due not only to evaporation but also to the water–rock interaction. The contribution of aluminosilicate hydrolysis to oxygen fractionation is confirmed by the direct dependence of the “oxygen shift” value on pH, whose value is determined by the degree of the above interaction. We have established that the diversity of the chemical and isotope compositions of lake waters is due to their multifactorial formation related to the different degrees of lake water evaporation, the different mineralization of organic matter, and the different duration of the interaction of lake waters and groundwater with rocks.