Geobiology and sedimentology of the hypersaline Great Salt Lake, Northern Utah, USA: analogues for assessing watery environments on Mars?

The hypersaline Great Salt Lake (GSL) of northern Utah, USA is a critical regional ecosystem that has not been examined in detail from a geobiological perspective. There are presently only a handful of studies on the biota of this shallow water closed-lake system [1]. Despite interest from industries mining the salt and harvesting the brine shrimp, relatively little is known about the lake?s geochemistry, microbial diversity, metabolic activity, and mineralogy, and how these relate together with processes of biosedimentation and fossil preservation.