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Don Juan Pond, also called Lake Don Juan, is a small and very shallow hypersaline
Salinity

Salinity is the saltiness or dissolved salt content of a body of water. Salinity in Australian English and North American English may also refer to the salt in soil ....
 lake in the west end of Wright Valley
Wright Valley

The Wright Valley is the central one of the three large Dry Valleys in the Transantarctic Mountains, located west of McMurdo Sound at approximately ....
 (South Fork), Victoria Land
Victoria Land

Victoria Land is a region of Antarctica bounded on the east by the Ross Sea and on the west by Wilkes Land. It was discovered by Captain James Clark Ross in January 1841 and named after the Victoria of the United Kingdom....
, Antarctica
Antarctica

Antarctica is Earth's southernmost continent, overlying the South Pole. It is situated in the Antarctica of the southern hemisphere, almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle, and is surrounded by the Southern Ocean....
, 9 km west from Lake Vanda
Lake Vanda

Lake Vanda is a lake in Wright Valley, Victoria Land, Ross Dependency, Antarctica. The lake is 5 km long and has a maximum depth of 69 m....
. It is wedged between the Asgard Range
Asgard Range

Asgard Range is a mountain range dividing Wright Valley from Taylor Glacier and Taylor Valley, in Victoria Land. It was named by the Victoria University of Wellington Antarctic Expedition after the home of the Norse gods....
 in the south and the Dais
Dais

Dais is any raised platform located either within or without a room or enclosure, often for dignified occupancy, as at the front of a lecture hall or sanctuary....
 in the north. On the west end there is a small tributary and a feature that has been described as a rock glacier.

Don Juan Pond was discovered in 1961. It was named for two helicopter pilots, Lt Don Roe and Lt John Hickey, who piloted the helicopter involved with the first field party investigating the pond.






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Don Juan Pond, also called Lake Don Juan, is a small and very shallow hypersaline
Salinity

Salinity is the saltiness or dissolved salt content of a body of water. Salinity in Australian English and North American English may also refer to the salt in soil ....
 lake in the west end of Wright Valley
Wright Valley

The Wright Valley is the central one of the three large Dry Valleys in the Transantarctic Mountains, located west of McMurdo Sound at approximately ....
 (South Fork), Victoria Land
Victoria Land

Victoria Land is a region of Antarctica bounded on the east by the Ross Sea and on the west by Wilkes Land. It was discovered by Captain James Clark Ross in January 1841 and named after the Victoria of the United Kingdom....
, Antarctica
Antarctica

Antarctica is Earth's southernmost continent, overlying the South Pole. It is situated in the Antarctica of the southern hemisphere, almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle, and is surrounded by the Southern Ocean....
, 9 km west from Lake Vanda
Lake Vanda

Lake Vanda is a lake in Wright Valley, Victoria Land, Ross Dependency, Antarctica. The lake is 5 km long and has a maximum depth of 69 m....
. It is wedged between the Asgard Range
Asgard Range

Asgard Range is a mountain range dividing Wright Valley from Taylor Glacier and Taylor Valley, in Victoria Land. It was named by the Victoria University of Wellington Antarctic Expedition after the home of the Norse gods....
 in the south and the Dais
Dais

Dais is any raised platform located either within or without a room or enclosure, often for dignified occupancy, as at the front of a lecture hall or sanctuary....
 in the north. On the west end there is a small tributary and a feature that has been described as a rock glacier.

Don Juan Pond was discovered in 1961. It was named for two helicopter pilots, Lt Don Roe and Lt John Hickey, who piloted the helicopter involved with the first field party investigating the pond. On that initial investigation, the temperature was minus 22 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 30 degrees Celsius) and the water remained in a liquid state.

Salinity

Don Juan Pond is a shallow, flat-bottom, hyper-saline pond. It has greater salinity
Salinity

Salinity is the saltiness or dissolved salt content of a body of water. Salinity in Australian English and North American English may also refer to the salt in soil ....
 than the Dead Sea
Dead Sea

For the Brian Keene book of the same name, see Dead Sea The Dead Sea is a salt lake between Israel and the West Bank to the west, and Jordan to the east....
 or even Lake Assal (Djibouti) (the same is true for Lake Vanda and perhaps other lakes in the McMurdo Dry Valleys
McMurdo Dry Valleys

The McMurdo Dry Valleys are a row of valleys in Antarctica located within Victoria Land west of McMurdo Sound. The region includes many interesting geological features including Lake Vida and the Onyx River, Antarctica's longest river....
). It has been claimed that the salinity in Don Juan Pond is over 18 times the ocean's salinity, compared to that of the Dead Sea at about 8 times that of the ocean. The fact that it is the only of the Antarctic hypersaline lakes that almost never freezes is an indication of its top rank in salinity among the world's lakes.

The salinity is high enough that it doesn't freeze even in winter. Therefore, unlike other lakes and ponds in the dry valleys, it has no ice cover. It has been described as a groundwater discharge zone, The dominant ions in solution are calcium and chloride. The area around Don Juan Pond is covered with sodium chloride and calcium chloride salts that have been precipitated as the water evaporated. Area and volume of Don Juan Pond varies over time. According to the USGS topo map published in 1977, the area was approximately 0.25 kmē, However, in recent years the size of the pond has shrunk considerably. The maximum depth in 1993-94 was described as "a foot deep." In January 1997, it was approximately 10 cm deep; in December 1998 the pond was almost dry everywhere except for an area of a few tens of square meters. Most of the water that was left was restricted to depressions around large boulders in the pond.

The calculated composition for its water is CaCl2 3.72 mol/kg and NaCl 0.50 mol/kg, at the temperature of -51.8°C. That would be equivalent to 413 g of CaCl2 and 29 g of NaCl per kg of water.

Literature

  • Yamagata, N., T. Torii, S. Murata: Report of the Japanese summer parties in Dry Valleys, Victoria Land, 1963-65; V - Chemical composition of lake waters. Antarctic Record 29: 53-75.


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