What is the smell in Salt Lake?

Bacteria can decompose quickly, but it removes oxygen at a more rapid pace. This can also be a source of the rotten egg smell that the Great Salt Lake is known for. Beyond that, the existence of industries who dump waste into the lake adds to the odor.



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The bubbles release the gas that forms from the decaying organic matter, and this gas smells anything but pleasant. It smells somewhat like rotten eggs, not unlike the sulfur hot springs that are also common in the intermountain west.

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The terror comes from toxins laced in the vast exposed lake bed, such as arsenic, mercury and lead, being picked up by the wind to form poisonous clouds of dust that would swamp the lungs of people in nearby Salt Lake City, where air pollution is often already worse than that of Los Angeles, potentially provoking a ...

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Swimming in the Great Salt Lake is safe despite contaminants, researchers say - Axios Salt Lake City.

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There's some bacteria that grow in the lake, Cotner said. That bacterium breathes in the sulfates that are in the decaying plants at the bottom of the lake. It's Thanksgiving for them, he said. That bacterium then turns those sulfates into smelly sulfide.

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According to a recent study by Brigham Young University, it's possible that Great Salt Lake could dry up completely in the next five years.

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The saltiest of the Great Salt Lake's water sits on the bottom of the lake. The heavy brine traps organic material (i.e., algae and plant and animal remains) and gases at the bottom of the lake.

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