The largest lake in California was accidental. <\/p>\n
The Salton Sea was once a playground for Hollywood stars. But now, it’s a toxic wasteland<\/strong> that’s been steadily drying up for decades.<\/p>\n The landscape may look apocalyptic, but there’s a subterranean reservoir underneath that holds a multibillion-dollar fortune in minerals.<\/p>\n There’s a massive rush on to drill for lithium in the deep brine. But it’s not just battery power<\/strong> that the tech giants are after.<\/p>\n What else is lying in the brine?<\/p>\n In 1905, a Colorado River irrigation canal breached. Millions of gallons of water flooded a desert sink 228 feet below sea level<\/strong>.<\/p>\n That’s how California’s largest lake, the Salton Sea, came to be.<\/p>\n In the 1950s, the area was a booming resort town<\/strong> with celebs like Frank Sinatra and the Beach Boys hanging out in the water.<\/p>\n Those days are long over. <\/p>\n Shifting politics around water and rising temperatures have evaporated a third of the lake<\/strong>. The water is now twice as salty as the Pacific Ocean.<\/p>\n There are now 39 square miles of exposed lakebed scraped raw by wind. And it’s toxic. This dust causes severe asthma in local towns like Calipatria.<\/p>\n Yet, the south end of the lake is alive with escaping steam causing bubbling mud pots<\/strong>. There are cracks in the Earth’s crust that release 700-degree Fahrenheit fluid.<\/p>\n It looks like something off the surface of the moon. What else sits in the land other than super hot, pressurized water?<\/p>\n The deposits under the died-up Salton Sea are valued at $540 billion. Officials have nicknamed the region the Saudi Arabia of lithium<\/strong>.<\/p>\n The Department of Energy estimates the basin holds 3,400 kilotons of the metal. Enough to power 375 million electric vehicles.<\/p>\n Now, an engineering race is underway. Major players like Energy Source Minerals are already drilling, processing a staggering 50,000 gallons of brine each minute<\/strong>.<\/p>\n But the operational reality is harsh<\/a>.<\/p>\n The fluid is highly acidic, corrosive, and incredibly hot. Geologists compare the extraction process to trying to drink from a fire hose<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Advanced filtration systems isolate the lithium, turning the thick, rust-colored brine into a clear liquid. Yet, that distinct rusty color hints at a dense cocktail of other concentrated elements left behind in the mix.<\/p>\n The industry is planning to intercept the hidden material<\/strong>, but can they access the full payload?<\/p>\n The reason behind the thick, rust-colored brine has become clear. What other minerals are available for harvesting?<\/p>\n The deep-earth payload contains huge, commercially viable concentrations of manganese and zinc<\/strong>.<\/p>\n This isn’t just a lithium rush. It is a multi-metal extraction bonus.<\/p>\n The strategic stakes are high. Drawing manganese and zinc<\/strong> directly from the geothermal fluid alongside lithium could rewrite American mineral independence<\/a>.<\/p>\n It allows immediate recovery without traditional, destructive mining.<\/p>\n Community leaders like Luis Olmedo of Comite Civico del Valle are fighting to ensure locals aren’t left behind<\/strong>.<\/p>\n The region is one of the poorest in the nation and the locals have to live with a strong sulfur smell and severe air pollution.<\/p>\n Advocates demand that profits from this $540-billion-dollar bonanza fund the cleanup of the exposed lakebed<\/strong>. They want stable, long-term infrastructure jobs for residents who have endured empty promises for decades.<\/p>\n If these companies can successfully scale this direct extraction technology, they will do more than just power the EV transition<\/strong>.<\/p>\n They will clean up a toxic wasteland and redefine how we harvest raw materials from the earth<\/a>.<\/p>\n The ultimate question is whether this green treasure will finally save the valley<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The largest lake in California was accidental. The Salton Sea was once a playground for Hollywood stars. But now, it’s a toxic wasteland that’s been steadily drying up for decades. The landscape may look apocalyptic, but there’s a subterranean reservoir underneath that holds a multibillion-dollar fortune in minerals. There’s a massive rush on to drill … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":28945,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rank_math_focus_keyword":"california","rank_math_title":"","rank_math_description":"Beneath California lies an underground lake three times the size of San Francisco, and now they want to drill into it for lithium\u2014and something else.","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-energy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28944"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28944\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}How an accident created California’s biggest lake<\/h2>\n
$540 billion in mineral treasure<\/h2>\n
More than a lithium rush: The stakes are high<\/h2>\n
The local human impact has to be considered<\/h3>\n