Page 144 - Çevre Şehir İklim İngilizce - Sayı 3

Traces Of Possible Ancient Life From Mars To Earth: An Assessment Of The
Microbial Ecology Of Salda Lake And Its Protection

The mineralogical and morphological properties of the carbonate units in
the Jezero crater indicate that the formation patterns of these structures may
be similar to Salda Lake (Garczynski et al., 2020). By taking into account the
scientific data on the formation of these carbonate units, NASA which has been
researching ecosystems on Earth similar to Mars for the last decade, stated
that Salda Lake is a unique lake on Earth that has geological, geochemical,
and mineralogical similarities with the ancient lake environment in Jezero
Crater in Mars, and accepted Salda Lake as and analogue for Mars - Jezero
Crater (Garczynski et al., 2019).
In the photo published on the official website of the American National
Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the similarity between Jezero
Crater and Salda Lake is shown (Figure 4). This similarity makes Salda Lake a
key area for studying the microbial diversity of analogue environments on Earth
during the search for possible biological traces on Mars (Garczynski et al., 2019).

a) b)

Figure 4. (a) Salda Lake (2020) (b) Jezero Crater (NASA, 2017)
Salda Lake is an alkaline lake located in the northwest of Burdur, in Yeşilova
district of Burdur Province. Salda Lake is located in the Region of Lakes which
also includes a group of lakes such as Acıgöl, Burdur Lake, Yarışlı Lake and
Akgöl. Salda Lake is one of the deepest freshwater lakes with a surface area of
45 km2. The deepest section is about 200 meters. The lake has no significant
and permanent surface flow and is mainly fed by meteoric waters (Braithwaite
& Zedef, 1995; Balci et al., 2018). Microbialites with hydromagnesite (aqueous
magnesium carbonate) content that develop in a lake-specific ecosystem
(Figure 5) are the most characteristic feature of Salda Lake (Ince et al., 2021).
These layered, sedimentary structures in Salda Lake have the morphology
of cauliflower (Figure 6) and contain fossil and living microbial communities
(Balci et al., 2018) .

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