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Dabusun or alternately known as is a
lake A lake is an area filled with water, localized in a basin, surrounded by land, and distinct from any river or other outlet that serves to feed or drain the lake. Lakes lie on land and are not part of the ocean, although, like the much large ...
beside the
town A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares an ori ...
Qarhan, just north of
Golmud Golmud, also known by various other romanizations, is a county-level city in the Haixi Mongol and Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Qinghai Province, China. It is now the second-largest city in Qinghai and the third largest in the Tibetan Pl ...
in the
Haixi Prefecture Haixi Mongolian and Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture (; mn, ᠬᠠᠶᠢᠰᠢ ᠶᠢᠨ ᠮᠣᠩᠭᠣᠯ ᠲᠥᠪᠡᠳ ᠦᠨᠳᠦᠰᠦᠲᠡᠨ ᠦ ᠥᠪᠡᠷᠲᠡᠭᠡᠨ ᠵᠠᠰᠠᠬᠤ ᠵᠧᠦ; bo, མཚོ་ནུབ་ ...
of
Qinghai Province Qinghai (; alternately romanized as Tsinghai, Ch'inghai), also known as Kokonor, is a landlocked province in the northwest of the People's Republic of China. It is the fourth largest province of China by area and has the third smallest pop ...
in northwestern
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
. Fed by the main course of the
Golmud River The Golmud or Ge'ermu River is a river in Golmud County, Haixi Prefecture, Qinghai Province, China. It flows north from the Kunlun Mountains to Dabusun and (occasionally) West Dabusun Lakes in the central Qarhan Playa in the southeastern Qa ...
, it is the largest present-day lake in the
Qarhan Playa The Qarhan Playa or also misleadingly described as , is a playa in the Golmud and Dulan counties of Haixi Prefecture, Qinghai, China. Formerly a single unitary lake, it is now an expansive salt flat divided into four greater sections ( Dab ...
. Like the other lakes of the surrounding Qaidam Basin, it is extremely saline, with 307–338 grams of salt per liter of water


Name

''Dabusun''. or ''Dabasun Nor'' is a
romanization Romanization or romanisation, in linguistics, is the conversion of text from a different writing system to the Roman (Latin) script, or a system for doing so. Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written text, and ...
of its Mongolian name, which means simply " Salt Lake". In Mongolian, the name is sometimes designated "eastern", to distinguish it from West Dabusun Lake. It is sometimes misspelled ''Dabsun''. or ''Dabsan''. It was formerly known as the ''Dalai Dabasun'',. meaning "Sea" or "Ocean of Salt". ''Dabuxun'' is the
pinyin Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese for ...
romanization Romanization or romanisation, in linguistics, is the conversion of text from a different writing system to the Roman (Latin) script, or a system for doing so. Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written text, and ...
of the
Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...
name (''Dábùxùn''), a
transcription Transcription refers to the process of converting sounds (voice, music etc.) into letters or musical notes, or producing a copy of something in another medium, including: Genetics * Transcription (biology), the copying of DNA into RNA, the fir ...
into
characters Character or Characters may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''Character'' (novel), a 1936 Dutch novel by Ferdinand Bordewijk * ''Characters'' (Theophrastus), a classical Greek set of character sketches attributed to The ...
of the Mongolian name.


Geography

Dabusun lies in the Dabusun subbasin in the central
Qarhan Playa The Qarhan Playa or also misleadingly described as , is a playa in the Golmud and Dulan counties of Haixi Prefecture, Qinghai, China. Formerly a single unitary lake, it is now an expansive salt flat divided into four greater sections ( Dab ...
. It is one of the many saltwater lakes in the
endorheic An endorheic basin (; also spelled endoreic basin or endorreic basin) is a drainage basin that normally retains water and allows no outflow to other external bodies of water, such as rivers or oceans, but drainage converges instead into lakes ...
Qaidam Basin, bound by the
Qilian Mountains The Qilian Mountains (, also romanized as Tsilien; Mongghul: Chileb), together with the Altyn-Tagh (Altun Shan) also known as Nan Shan (, literally "Southern Mountains"), as it is to the south of Hexi Corridor, is a northern outlier of the Kunlu ...
to the north, the Altun to the west, and the
Kunlun The Kunlun Mountains ( zh, s=昆仑山, t=崑崙山, p=Kūnlún Shān, ; ug, كۇئېنلۇن تاغ تىزمىسى / قۇرۇم تاغ تىزمىسى ) constitute one of the longest mountain chains in Asia, extending for more than . In the bro ...
to the south. Lying at an elevation of above
sea level Mean sea level (MSL, often shortened to sea level) is an average surface level of one or more among Earth's coastal bodies of water from which heights such as elevation may be measured. The global MSL is a type of vertical datuma standardised g ...
, it has a mean annual temperature of despite lying on the same latitude as
Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders with ...
,
Algeria ) , image_map = Algeria (centered orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Algiers , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , relig ...
, and
Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...
in the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
. Dabasun is the largest present lake in the
Qarhan Playa The Qarhan Playa or also misleadingly described as , is a playa in the Golmud and Dulan counties of Haixi Prefecture, Qinghai, China. Formerly a single unitary lake, it is now an expansive salt flat divided into four greater sections ( Dab ...
. It is fed by the main course of the
Golmud River The Golmud or Ge'ermu River is a river in Golmud County, Haixi Prefecture, Qinghai Province, China. It flows north from the Kunlun Mountains to Dabusun and (occasionally) West Dabusun Lakes in the central Qarhan Playa in the southeastern Qa ...
from the south and, to a lesser extent, by
mineral springs Mineral springs are naturally occurring springs that produces hard water, water that contains dissolved minerals. Salts, sulfur compounds, and gases are among the substances that can be dissolved in the spring water during its passage under ...
from the north. In Qaidam's hyperarid climate, there is generally only of annual rainfall but about of annual evaporation. Its area is thus variable by season and year, usually but increasing in the wetter winter and spring and decreasing through the summer and fall. The lake is elongated, stretching from the northwest to the southeast. Its length is usually about east to west, and its width is usually about north to south. The maximum depth is , and the average depth varies from .


Geology

Although the northern springs contribute much less volume, their waters carry far greater concentrations of solutes and are important to the chemical composition of the lake. Below, the alternating beds of mud and
halite Halite (), commonly known as rock salt, is a type of salt, the mineral (natural) form of sodium chloride ( Na Cl). Halite forms isometric crystals. The mineral is typically colorless or white, but may also be light blue, dark blue, purple, p ...
extend at least in some places. In addition to common salt, it also has an abundance of
carnallite Carnallite (also carnalite) is an evaporite mineral, a hydrated potassium magnesium chloride with formula KMgCl3·6(H2O). It is variably colored yellow to white, reddish, and sometimes colorless or blue. It is usually massive to fibrous with rare ...
(
potassium Potassium is the chemical element with the symbol K (from Neo-Latin ''kalium'') and atomic number19. Potassium is a silvery-white metal that is soft enough to be cut with a knife with little force. Potassium metal reacts rapidly with atmosphe ...
magnesium Magnesium is a chemical element with the symbol Mg and atomic number 12. It is a shiny gray metal having a low density, low melting point and high chemical reactivity. Like the other alkaline earth metals (group 2 of the periodic ta ...
chloride The chloride ion is the anion (negatively charged ion) Cl−. It is formed when the element chlorine (a halogen) gains an electron or when a compound such as hydrogen chloride is dissolved in water or other polar solvents. Chloride salts ...
) in an area of and
magnesium sulfate Magnesium sulfate or magnesium sulphate (in English-speaking countries other than the US) is a chemical compound, a salt with the formula , consisting of magnesium cations (20.19% by mass) and sulfate anions . It is a white crystalline solid, ...
. The known beds are exposed at the surface or buried by of sedimentation.


History

Paleoclimatologists Paleoclimatology (American and British English spelling differences, British spelling, palaeoclimatology) is the study of climates for which direct measurements were not taken. As instrumental records only span a tiny part of Earth's history, the ...
believe that between 770,000 and 30,000 years ago Dabusun formed part of a much larger Qarhan Lake, which alternated nine times between being a fresh- and saltwater lake. Pollen studies suggest that the area of the lake bed which now underlies Dabusun was raised around in just the last 500,000 years. Tectonic activity also varied sedimentation in the lake by shifting its tributaries and basins, although it remained in the Qarhan Playa during this period. At around 30,000 years ago, this great freshwater lake spread over at least with a surface above the present levels of its successors. It was cut off and became saline again around 30,000 years ago and began precipitating salts about 25,000 years ago.. It has been shrinking in size by evaporation for most of that time, although it was only about in circumference in the mid-19th century, when it was visited by the Polono-
Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
explorer
Przhevalsky Nikolay Mikhaylovich Przhevalsky (or Prjevalsky;; pl, Nikołaj Przewalski, . – ) was a Russian geographer of Polish descent (he was born in a Polish noble family), and a renowned List of explorers, explorer of Central Asia, Central and Eas ...
. Until the recent commercial exploitation of the salts and other minerals, the district has remained largely unpopulated, as the salt deposits made it difficult for the nomads of northwestern China to use the area for their herds. The area's potassium deposits were accidentally discovered in 1957 and exploratory wells found the Yanhu Gas Field north of the lake the next year.


Transportation

The lake lies just west of the G3011 Liuge Expressway. It is also serviced by the Dabusun and Qarhan
railway station Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...
s on the Qingzang Railway.


See also

*
Salt in Chinese history Salt, salt production, and salt taxes played key roles in Chinese history, economic development, and relations between state and society. The lure of salt profits led to technological innovation and new ways to organize capital. Debate over go ...
*
List of lakes This is a list of the top three to five major lakes per region, with links to more detailed region lists of lakes. A "major" lake is defined as that which is the largest by area, depth, volume, or cultural and/or environmental significance. A ...
and saltwater lakes of China


Notes


References


Citations


Bibliography

* . * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * . {{refend Lakes of China Lakes of Qinghai Haixi Mongol and Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture