Photo Essay
Shafter Lake (Under Dry Conditions)
Like the Stink Creek and Soda Lake photoessays, several members of the 2008 Master Naturalist Class did the photography (Chris Cherry, J.D. Drissel, Sean Patty, and Nina McCart). Each received several hours of volunteer service for the requirements of the class for their work. Nina McCart exlaimed, “What a wonderful immense place!” The staff of the Sibley Nature Center marveled at the variety of subject matter that the students found.
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The lake is over a mile across (north to south) and over two miles long (east to west). The four class members reported that only saw a handful of cars travel the county road on its east side during their visit to the site.
Some of the land next to the lake is privately owned. The University of Texas owns some of the land, too, which is leased to the ranchers nearby.
The lake is in an oilfield that was discovered in the 1940s and still has producing wells (even in the middle of the lake.)
When dry, the alkali dust whips up. As the dust is full of various salts, the dust can be very irritating to the eyes of any visitor, or the animals that live along its shore.
Not all the pumpjacks were hooked up to a well.
The lake is rarely visited by "mudders." If a vehicle ventures out too far, it can easily get stuck, even when the lake appears dry.
The iron of the pumpjacks has been scarred by exposure to the salts.
What caused the ridge of salt in the middle of the lake? As the salt crystallizes, does it expand and create pressure ridges? What other explanations are possible?
The dark wavy line is where the waterline reached after a heavy rain. Detritus rides the floodwaters into the lake, and then is blown to the edge of the water, where it is deposited as the lake dries.
The dark color is an indication of the organic nature of the detritus. The organic nature of the detritus attracts a number of insects while it is still wet. When the lake fills again, the most of the detritus will be shoved along and deposited again.
Some of it will become mixed into the alkali flat of the lake, but other parts of the detritus will become dust and be blown to the edge, where it will help form the characteristic gray-white "loess" that lines the lake (except on the west.)
Property lines must be marked, although it is doubtful a rancher's cow will ever test this barbed wire fence. There is no reason for a cow to venture out into the lake.
Golden broomweed and yellow alkali sacaton, along with scattered mesquite bushes, grow in the loess above the lake.
Pickleweed grow along the edge of the lake, and sometimes out into the lake where organic soil has mixed with the more alkaline soil.
During the winter pickleweed has a reddish to golden color, but in the growing season, it will become green. (Visit the other photoessay on Shafter Lake to see the growing season color.)
Saltbush is another one of the indicator plants of the alkaline soil habitat. The golden seedheads of the female plants hang on until March.
Male saltbush plants have no seeds.
This gall is common on saltbush. Inside is a tiny larva that will emerge as an adult during the growing season. We have not yet photographed the insect that will emerge, but it is probably a tiny species of wasp.
Saltbushes live about 20 years. Older plants can develop trunks 3-4 inches across, and it takes decades for the wood to decay and rot.
Only a handful of salt cedars are along the eastern edge of the lake. The lake is rarely completely full long enough for the salt cedar seed to germinate.
In the winter the "needles" of the salt cedar fall to the ground and get caught on the lowest branches of the shrubs.
The wind "always blows" at the lake. The alkali sacaton grass bloomstalks ripple in recurring waves as the gusts ebb and flow. Broomweed adds a darker golden color to the scene.
In a handful of places in the lake there are small ridges that have been colonized by alkali sacaton and pickleweed.
Notice how the basal stalks of the grass are coated with a salt deposit. This would kill most plants.
The sacaton captures the blowing salty dust and builds up the hillock even higher.
Along one section of the shore a dark "rock" lines the shore.
Is the dark rock petroleum waste from decades ago, or is it organic material from an earlier time when the lake remained full (during the Pleistocene?)
A patch of multi-colored soil also posed a mystery. Is this the result of a man made product (like metal) rusting into nothingness - or is there another explanation?
Why did this narrow channel form in the salt loess hill along the edge of the lake? Was it created by a waterline (going to an oilwell) break?
Most cacti cannot survive in highly alkaline soil, so this specimen was a surprise to the Sibley staff, who could not easily identify its species. It may be a lace cactus, which is common in the mesquite pastureland not far from the lake.
To find a horsecrippler cactus in the loess was a surprise, too. Was the discoloration of the flesh a result of the salty soil, or from the winter's cold?
Wood becomes frayed by the repeated indundation of salt water and the crystallization of the salt after it dries.
Salt crystals can be found on the floor of the lake.
What created these ripples of salt deposit?
Upon closer examination, it appears the ripples are hollow.
A closeup verifies that the ripples are hollow.
When the photographer first took a look at the lake surface, it appeared that tiny holes pockmarked the surface, but when examined closer, they are revealed to be nodules irregularly spaced. What causes this form of deposit that is so different from the ridges previously examined?
Coyote tracks meandered out into the lake for some distance.
Why did the coyote leave its scat on the lake surface repeatedly. Wouldn't salt quickly dry the droppings, thereby nullifying the purpose of "a scent post?"
The coyote stopped and dug where the salt deposits were shallow. What could have possibly been under the soil that would have attracted it, or was it just playing?
This dark spot was not far from where the digging occurred. Notice the placement of the footprints.
Upon close examination of the dark spot and the tracks, the photographer decided a female coyote had squatted and urinated. This might explain the diggings as the work of a male coyote excited by her scent.
Near the shore of the lake the turret of a wolf spider was found - but a long way from where its insect prey might be visiting plants.
A robberfly was closer to shore, near plants. Both the wolf spider and robberfly are predators, but none of the Master Naturalists found any other evidence of insects or other invertebrates along the shore.
In one of the old detritus edges, the photographers found many insects coated with salt. The insects washed into the lake during a rain, or flew into the water blown by the wind and died.
The millipede might have wandered too far - it seems unlikely it would have been washed into the lake like the beetle in the previous photograph.
A bright green scarab beetle was almost completely coated with salt.
This tarantula might have died as it crossed the lake bottom while it was still damp, and then the salt crystallized on its legs and undersides after it died.
A different method of death probably killed this tarantula. It is coated with a fine sheen of salt, so it must have floated into the lake during a rainstorm. It might have been on the lake bottom a shorter time that the previous tarantula, even though it looks more decayed.
With its wings still spread, the evidence points towards this grasshopper landing in the lake and drowning.
Did the grasshopper die first, since it is the most coated with salt? Did the beetle in the upper right die last, since it has the least salt on it? Or did they all die during the same event (such as a rainstorm) they were in an area where pinkish sand had washed into the lake.
Is there any relationship between the large grass seeds and the grasshopper? Could the grasshopper been asleep on a blade of grass when it was knocked to the ground by rain or hail, and then washed into the lake?
An observer first notices the small beetle the size of the penny, but look on the clump of detritus at its head. A tiny shorefly (alive) is sitting there! Was the larger beetle scavenging on the detritus when it died - and just what is that detritus? It might be another insect!
Giant waterbugs live in fresh water. It probably landed in the water after wandering around looking for a place to live, but the alkaline water did it in. If it had arrived when the lake was full and the water not near as alkaline, it would found that little prey was available in the water and left again.
This melanolopus grasshopper species sometimes is a migratory species. The photographers found dozens of dessicated individuals along the shore, so a migration of the species must have occurred in 2007.
The salt crystals along the grasshopper indicate to Sibley staff that it floated in water for a period, becoming saturated with the moisture. The crystals then "grew" as the moisture was wicked out of the body.
A clump of salt crystals seemed peculiar. When the photographer knelt down, it was discovered that it was a bird, but the only way to figure out the story was because of the legs. The feathers no longer looked like feathers.
This hunk of lumber was well coated with salt.
Another hunk of lumber had been in the lake for years and was frayed and flayed so much it no longer had the shape of its original milled shape.
Why would anyone build a fence across a salt lake? Why is it just stubs of the fence posts? Did the fenceposts sink in to the soil when the lake was full of water?
The shore is a welcome sight after wandering the barren wastes of the lake bottom!
The lake seems even bigger when you look back after wandering around on the lake bottom.
On the north side of the lake a handful of junipers grow, an unusual sight on the top of the Llano Estacado. A bird would have had to fly many miles before defecating the seed at just the right time. Could it be that an Indian brought the original seed to the location long ago? Juniper berries were used for flavoring, just like salt is. The salt at Shafter Lake, as far as the staff of the Sibley Center knows, was never harvested for human use, unlike Juan Cordona Lake near Crane, many miles to the south of Shafter Lake.