Images

One of three wind and sonde sensors being put up in Lake Abert. This will track water quality throughout the season, allowing scientists to witness changes over time. 

Researchers deploying sonde and wind sensors in Summer Lake. These sensors will gather continuous water quality data on pH, water temperature, dissolved oxygen, and specific conductance. 

Tadpole shrimp are also known as living fossils. This is because they have been around since the Devonian period, 350 million years ago! 

Diagram of hydrologic inputs and outflows (fluxes) for water budgets of terminal lakes and their watershed spatial extent. Understanding this process helps us to understand the ability of systems to support birds and ecosystems. 

Distribution of GPS- marked Cinnamon teals. Marking data is from 2017-2024 with over 59,000 locations used. 

A water boatmen, scientific name Corixidae, is an aquatic insect that lives in both freshwater and saline ecosystems. They're commonly found as a source of prey for migratory birds across the Saline Lakes. 

A Water Boatmen or Corixidae viewed through a microscope. They have a thin bubble of air trapped against their body, allowing them to stay underwater for long periods of time.

Cinnamon teal with a GPS tracking backpack that weighs 10 grams, making it much more successful in staying on longer than heavier tracking devices. 

Hovercrafts allow researchers to get to hard to enter places that may be difficult to get to by a normal boat. 

Researchers at Lake Abert use pressure transducers in piezometers and in staff gauges to be able to gain pressure data. Along with temperature probes they use this data to determine exchange between surface and groundwater. 

Sunset over Lake Abert in Oregon. It is the sixth largest lake in Oregon. It is so salty that fish cannot live in it, but it does support many shorebirds. 

USGS scientist processing water quality samples near Hart Lake. Water quality can have huge impacts on hydrologic processes, food web characteristics, and prey availability.  

To get and process bugs, scientists use these supplies at Saline Lakes to gather macroinvertebrate data. These help them to better understand the lakes habitat and know how many birds that can be supported. 

Macroinvertebrates are largely important to the life cycle of migratory birds in the Saline Lakes. Researchers work to understand what food is available to them, and how changes can impact bird habitat and populations. 

American avocets are able to walk, stand, and dive after just a day old. They have tan heads with white bodies, black wings, and a long black beak

Lake Abert, Oregon is one of the 20 terminal lakes identified by USGS partners as priority ecosystems for study by the Saline Lakes Ecosystems IWAA.

Goose Lake, on the Oregon-California border, is one of the 20 terminal lakes identified by USGS partners as priority ecosystems for study by the Saline Lakes Ecosystems IWAA. 

Eagle Lake, located in northeastern California approximately 16 miles north of Susanville in Lassen County, sits at an elevation of 5,100 feet above sea level. It is the second largest natural freshwater lake entirely within California. Eagle Lake is within the Great Basin, with all incoming waters remaining in the lake without outflow.

Summer Lake, Oregon is one of the 20 terminal lakes identified by USGS partners as priority ecosystems for study by the Saline Lakes Ecosystems IWAA.

USGS scientists use boats to assist in their water quality surveys. This allows them to access deeper portions of the lake that would be hard to get to on foot.

Around Hart Lake, hundreds of bird species either reside or stop during migration. Nesting species include sandhill cranes, American white pelicans, double-crested cormorants, willets, Wilson's phalaropes, gadwalls, northern shovelers, American coots, western grebes, Clark's grebes, black-crowned night herons, Canada geese, mallards, and various ducks and terns.