Trivia question: what two movies had sequences filmed at Mono Lake?
1. Fair Wind to Java (starring Fred MacMurray and Vera Johnston; 1953; Republic)
had its volcanic eruption sequences filmed on the lake, enhanced by erecting a
scaffold with smudge pots behind it on a small islet near Paoha Island so to look
more eruptive and volcanically menacing as a Krakatoa stand in. The islet and its
scaffolding are still there.
2. High Plains Drifter (starring Clint Eastwood and Verna Bloom; 1971; Universal)
shot mostly on the lake’s southern shore near a forested region that once provided
lumber to the mines and the present ghost town of Bodie, CA.
3. Close but no cigar: Out of the Past (Robert Mitchum and Jane Greer; co-starring
Kirk Douglas and Rhonda Fleming; 1947; Warner Bros.) had sequences filmed
outside the county courthouse in Bridgeport, CA, some 30 miles north of Mono
Lake but no lake scenes. Sean Penn served prison time for reckless driving in the
Bridgeport hoosegow back when he was married to Madonna (1987).
4. Again close, but now 30 miles further south: The Secret of Convict Lake (starring
Glen Ford; Gene Tierny; Ethel Barrymore; 1951; 20th Century Fox) dramatizes
the escaped convicts escapade from Carson City in 1871 as mentioned earlier in
this chapter.
Mono Lake is of course famous for its exposed tufa mounds formed when
calcium-laden freshwater springs encounter the alkaline/carbonate-rich brine and
precipitate CaCO 3 . Tephra is a light-weight rock spat out of an eruptive volcano, and
many blocks of tephra abound by the lake’s northern margin surrounding Black
Point. And then there is pumice, a very light, gas-filled volcanic rock that abounds
along the shoreline in the NE quadrant playa. The smooth, pebble-sized stuff can
actually float atop Mono Lake water and get blown all around the lake. CBS news
recently televised a short film clip of the lake’s tufa preserve which is well-worth
watching: https://www.cbsnews.com/video/nature-californias-mono-lake/?
fbclid¼IwAR3qnHSvgrZC7KifVelFsha6YthYhXaSsKBs8uB67jWUFmmcPDt_
gf0iVPA
The region also has a history of precious metal mining that got started in earnest
during the second half of the nineteenth century, as the now ghost towns of Bodie,
CA, and Virginia City, NV, can attest. In simple geochemical terms, hot magma
essentially volatilizes metals such as gold, silver, and platinum so that they become
upwardly mobile within the bedrock, eventually aggregating into concentrated ore
veins where they cool and solidify. Along with the precious metals comes the dense,
mobilized arsenic bearing minerals, which are leached out of the rock by hot
geothermal waters, and subsequently drain into the closed-basin lake. Mono
Lake’s unique alkaline chemistry keeps the arsenic in solution, so that in addition
to the oxyanions arsenate and arsenite, the anoxic waters also contain soluble
arsenic–sulfide complexes, compounds that would normally precipitate into the
sediments of a freshwater lake. Add to this, the evapo-concentrative effects of an
arid climate of the past few thousand years, and voilà: Mono Lake’s current
concentration of dissolved inorganic arsenic is ~200 μM.
31 Salty, Alkali-Laced Tales (Mostly True) from the Great Basin Desert, California. . .
675
1. Fair Wind to Java (starring Fred MacMurray and Vera Johnston; 1953; Republic)
had its volcanic eruption sequences filmed on the lake, enhanced by erecting a
scaffold with smudge pots behind it on a small islet near Paoha Island so to look
more eruptive and volcanically menacing as a Krakatoa stand in. The islet and its
scaffolding are still there.
2. High Plains Drifter (starring Clint Eastwood and Verna Bloom; 1971; Universal)
shot mostly on the lake’s southern shore near a forested region that once provided
lumber to the mines and the present ghost town of Bodie, CA.
3. Close but no cigar: Out of the Past (Robert Mitchum and Jane Greer; co-starring
Kirk Douglas and Rhonda Fleming; 1947; Warner Bros.) had sequences filmed
outside the county courthouse in Bridgeport, CA, some 30 miles north of Mono
Lake but no lake scenes. Sean Penn served prison time for reckless driving in the
Bridgeport hoosegow back when he was married to Madonna (1987).
4. Again close, but now 30 miles further south: The Secret of Convict Lake (starring
Glen Ford; Gene Tierny; Ethel Barrymore; 1951; 20th Century Fox) dramatizes
the escaped convicts escapade from Carson City in 1871 as mentioned earlier in
this chapter.
Mono Lake is of course famous for its exposed tufa mounds formed when
calcium-laden freshwater springs encounter the alkaline/carbonate-rich brine and
precipitate CaCO 3 . Tephra is a light-weight rock spat out of an eruptive volcano, and
many blocks of tephra abound by the lake’s northern margin surrounding Black
Point. And then there is pumice, a very light, gas-filled volcanic rock that abounds
along the shoreline in the NE quadrant playa. The smooth, pebble-sized stuff can
actually float atop Mono Lake water and get blown all around the lake. CBS news
recently televised a short film clip of the lake’s tufa preserve which is well-worth
watching: https://www.cbsnews.com/video/nature-californias-mono-lake/?
fbclid¼IwAR3qnHSvgrZC7KifVelFsha6YthYhXaSsKBs8uB67jWUFmmcPDt_
gf0iVPA
The region also has a history of precious metal mining that got started in earnest
during the second half of the nineteenth century, as the now ghost towns of Bodie,
CA, and Virginia City, NV, can attest. In simple geochemical terms, hot magma
essentially volatilizes metals such as gold, silver, and platinum so that they become
upwardly mobile within the bedrock, eventually aggregating into concentrated ore
veins where they cool and solidify. Along with the precious metals comes the dense,
mobilized arsenic bearing minerals, which are leached out of the rock by hot
geothermal waters, and subsequently drain into the closed-basin lake. Mono
Lake’s unique alkaline chemistry keeps the arsenic in solution, so that in addition
to the oxyanions arsenate and arsenite, the anoxic waters also contain soluble
arsenic–sulfide complexes, compounds that would normally precipitate into the
sediments of a freshwater lake. Add to this, the evapo-concentrative effects of an
arid climate of the past few thousand years, and voilà: Mono Lake’s current
concentration of dissolved inorganic arsenic is ~200 μM.
31 Salty, Alkali-Laced Tales (Mostly True) from the Great Basin Desert, California. . .
675