An anomaly I couldn’t even begin to fathom. I mean, barnacles perched like birds in the trees? What kind of siren song were they singing anyway? This was all before there was internet. Shocking, I know. I surmised, that means at one point the Sea of Cortez came moseying in for a visit. What’s even more shocking is that by 1990 the Laguna Salada was almost completely evaporated. And yes, it was very salty.
We had no idea that the Salton Sea was dying, nor of its sister sea. It was like landing in the middle of an apocalyptic dream. One Easter vacation we drove down from Berkeley enroute to Baja, Mexico thinking we could get a motel at the Salton Sea. I always wanted to go there. It was late when we arrived at Bombay Beach, everything was closed. As in permanently closed.
We had no idea that the Salton Sea was dying, nor of its sister sea. It was like landing in the middle of an apocalyptic dream. One Easter vacation we drove down from Berkeley enroute to Baja, Mexico thinking we could get a motel at the Salton Sea. I always wanted to go there. It was late when we arrived at Bombay Beach, everything was closed. As in permanently closed.
We eventually found a dirty cockroach-infested motel, we had to hop the fence to get into the swimming pool, swimming under full moonlight in the hot desert night was brilliant. But the morning light brought a shocker when we saw where we were. It looked like bombs were dropped on the buildings.
What kind of hellhole did we land in? We could’ve used a Piña Colada with tequila shot chasers for breakfast. Originally we were planning to have breakfast somewhere, but we couldn’t get out of Dodge fast enough. By comparison, Laguna Salada was like paradise. We camped along its shores and swam by moonlight as if in a dream, but this was a freaking apocalyptic nightmare on steroids.
Did that huge 1892 7.2 earthquake have something to do with shifting the mouth of the Colorado River, and opening the rift to the Sea of Cortez? The presence of barnacles in Laguna Salada certainly suggests something like it. I’m fairly certain those barnacles didn’t spontaneously fly in on little bird feet, cute as their feathered toes are. (There is also evidence of marine intrusion during the Pliocene era.)
Did that huge 1892 7.2 earthquake have something to do with shifting the mouth of the Colorado River, and opening the rift to the Sea of Cortez? The presence of barnacles in Laguna Salada certainly suggests something like it. I’m fairly certain those barnacles didn’t spontaneously fly in on little bird feet, cute as their feathered toes are. (There is also evidence of marine intrusion during the Pliocene era.)
So hard to find solid info. Maybe they came in by boats. If there was a boatdock, there would’ve been pangas. And there are also barnacles in the Salton Sea. (Turns out the military was using the Salton Sea for target practice, and the barnacles came via the seaplanes.)
OK this gets weirder yet: since I got nowhere on Laguna Salada, I googled barnacles, Salton Sea. I found this “The barnacles arrived as stowaways in boats and seaplane ballast tanks, back when war came to the desert. B-29s dropped dummy bombs, full of concrete and a belief in the greater good, aimed for a white dot in a sea of blue. They dropped a Little Boy dummy and practiced fleeing the consequences.”
Balanus amphitrite
Balanus amphitrite saltonensis.
One study I found suggests the barnacles arrived in the 1980s. Well, the question begs, how could barnacles grow that big in such a short time? I was there in the mid-1980s, and they were already well colonized. Also they were stranded well above waterline. By then, the lake had dropped by at least 15 feet, if not more. I postulate this assumption that barnacles arrived in the 1980s is dead-wrong.
OK this gets weirder yet: since I got nowhere on Laguna Salada, I googled barnacles, Salton Sea. I found this “The barnacles arrived as stowaways in boats and seaplane ballast tanks, back when war came to the desert. B-29s dropped dummy bombs, full of concrete and a belief in the greater good, aimed for a white dot in a sea of blue. They dropped a Little Boy dummy and practiced fleeing the consequences.”
Balanus amphitrite
Balanus amphitrite saltonensis.
https://invasions.si.edu/nemesis/species_summary/89616
Introduction of barnacles to the inland Salton Sea in the 1940s probably resulted from non-native amphitrite barnacles attached to navy planes, boats, buoys or other equipment transferred from San Diego Bay for training purposes (Carlton 1979). That explains the barnacles in the Salton Sea, but it does not explain them in Laguna Salada, as we would not have been using Mexican territory for military target practice. That would’ve been tantamount to declaring war on Mexico.
Introduction of barnacles to the inland Salton Sea in the 1940s probably resulted from non-native amphitrite barnacles attached to navy planes, boats, buoys or other equipment transferred from San Diego Bay for training purposes (Carlton 1979). That explains the barnacles in the Salton Sea, but it does not explain them in Laguna Salada, as we would not have been using Mexican territory for military target practice. That would’ve been tantamount to declaring war on Mexico.
It’s good to have a mystery somewhat cleared up after so many years. Also, contrary to popular belief, the ephemeral Salton Sea has spontaneously filled and evaporated many times since the last prehistoric massive freshwater Lake Cahuilla disappeared sometime during the 1730s. It wasn’t just a one-off man-made fluke that was the results from a busted dike. The sinkhole basin has been an alternate route for the Colorado River for ages. Maybe someday soon it will return again if we ever get out of this drought mode.
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| The Salton Sea & Laguna Salada basins (bottom) from an altitude of about 62 miles. |
This blogpost was from a Facebook post. John Aubert, Thank you for your post inadvertently bringing me back to an ephemeral moment in time where it was pure magic. Above and bottom graphic from California Geology Forum, thanks to William A. Bowman and Keith Ensminger.
- Baja Journal from the air: Lagunas Hanson, Salada, & the Salton Sea
- Laguna Salada 1984-2016 Laloxtreet, YouTube
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| Lake Cahuilla 1731–1733 (Lake A); 1618–1636 (Lake B); 1486–1503 (Lake C); 1118–1165 or 1192–1241 (Lake D); 1007–1070 (Lake E); 930–966 (Lake F); and 612–5 BCE (Lake G) Science Direct. |
