OFLUXO

30,000 – 13,000 ya – The five trillion tons of water in Lake Bonneville cover the enormous expanse of the proposed Mormon state of Deseret. The body of water in this now arid location emerged by nature of the Budyko curve. This curve demonstrates that when mass precipitation occurs due to fluctuating temperatures, the sun’s rays’ evaporation cannot keep up with the amount of water molecules when they appear so densely. The curve also acts inversely. The wet become wetter and the arid more dry. The latter-day desert is currently eroding so quickly that its complete history is disappearing before it can be unearthed.

13,000 ya – On the other end of Budyko, Lake Bonneville dissolves into the hot air dividing into two opposite water masses: the appropriately named Great Salt Lake and Utah Lake, a contemporary body of water that carries an enormous amount of algae – a site that biologists look towards for alternative food consumption in the future. Both demonstrate different levels of un-livability via Utah Lake’s enormous harmful algal blooms that are toxic to most animals and the Great Salt Lake’s enormous salt concentration infamous for mummifying the bodies of dead animals on its shores more quickly than their flesh can rot.

1902 – The Lucin Cutoff is built by Southern Pacific Railroad splitting the Great Salt Lake in half across the connection of Ogden and Lucin. This causeway resulted in the radical color shift of the lake in which the blue southern region is now populated by enormous amounts of brine shrimp while the reddish pink northern region gained its colors as it became a hotbed of halophilic bacteria. When the Great Saltair, Utah’s only lakeside resort, closed due to the retreating shoreline, the captive flock of flamingos escaped and were reported to be seen for about a decade across the Salt Lake before disappearing completely. Flamingos get their pink color through the consumption of halophilic archaea. The subtle difference between the archaea and bacteria lies in peptidoglycan along the cell wall.

1963 – Lake Powell is artificially created on top of 26,000 tons of radioactive waste created by the Vanadium Corporation of America. These tailings are hidden by an earth shield that serves as the lake’s bottom where large catfish lurk among hordes of Russian and Ukraine-native invasive zebra-quagga mussels that cling to the branches of water-smothered ancient Gambel oak. Today Powell provides the drinking water for much of the Southwest United States as well as functioning as a major recreation and vacation area.

All aboard the ark of Deseret.