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Limnological studies on the Pretoria Salt Pan, a hypersaline maar lake

I: Morphometric, physical and chemical features

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Abstract

The Pretoria Salt Pan is shallow (maximum depth 2.85 m) and alkaline (surface water pH varied from 9.6 to 10.9) with pronounced mesothermy (38.2 °C in spring) at a depth of between 0.55 and 0.7 metres. Secchi disc transparencies ranged from 7 to 19 cm. A total ionic concentration gradient increasing from 59 500 mg · ℓ−1 near the surface to 298 000 mg · ℓ−1 at 2.75 metres stabilized the thermally inverted water column. Sodium was the major cation and nearly equal proportions of chloride plus carbonate and bicarbonate accounted for over 98% of the anions. The lake was meromictic with a steep chemocline, persistent thermally inverted temperature profile and complete anoxia at depths greater than 50 cm. The diel pattern of dissolved oxygen distribution involving a nocturnal deoxygenation and diurnal reoxygenation was unusual.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, National Institute for Water Research, P.O. Box 395, 0001, Pretoria, R.S.A.

    P. J. Ashton & F. R. Schoeman

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  1. P. J. Ashton
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  2. F. R. Schoeman
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Ashton, P.J., Schoeman, F.R. Limnological studies on the Pretoria Salt Pan, a hypersaline maar lake. Hydrobiologia 99, 61–73 (1983). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00013718

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00013718

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