Lake Zabuye
| Zabuye Lake | |
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The lake is marked with the red dot
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| Location | Tibetan Plateau / Shigatse Prefecture |
| Coordinates | 31°26′51″N 84°3′28″E / 31.44750°N 84.05778°ECoordinates: 31°26′51″N 84°3′28″E / 31.44750°N 84.05778°E |
| Type | Cretaceous-Eocene, brine lake |
| Primary inflows | From Rianglinag snow-covered mountains |
| Primary outflows | Landlocked |
| Basin countries | Tibet Autonomous Region, China |
| Surface area | 247 km2 (100 sq mi) |
| Average depth | 0.7 m (2.3 ft) |
| Max. depth | 2.0 m (6.6 ft) |
| Surface elevation | 4,421 m (14,505 ft) |
| Islands | Two sub basins linked by a channel |
| References | |
Zabuye Lake is a hypersaline, landlocked soda lake located at an elevation of 4,400 metres (14,400 ft) in the Shigatse Prefecture of Tibet Autonomous Region, 1,050 km (650 mi) from Lhasa. The lake gives its name to the mineral zabuyelite (lithium carbonate, Li2CO3), which was discovered here in 1987 and has been mined since 2004–2005. In 2008, the salt mine at the lake was regarded as the major source of lithium in China.
The name of Zabuye Lake is also spelt as Drangyer, Zabayu, Zhabuye, Chabyêr or Chabyer, sometimes with an addition of "Tsaka" or "caka", which means "salt lake" in Tibetan.
The lake is located in the Gangdise Mountains (also known as the Lunggar Mountains) deep in the Tibetan Plateau. It is one of 251 salt lakes in Tibet. It is divided into the northern (98 km²) and the southern (149 km²) sub-basins, which are linked by a narrow channel. The southern part is semi-dry and appears white in satellite images. The northern part is fed from two inlets on east and on the west, by the snow melt of the Rianglinag Mountains (6,364 metres (20,879 ft)). The catchment area is 6,680 km², and the lake is surrounded by mountains with a height of 4,600–5,200 m above sea level. The lake is fed by rain, underground water and melting ice. Paleo-lake shore deposits in the area include sand banks, spits and barriers, and interbarrier lakes and lake shore deltas that form a cliff along the lake, in different tectonogeomorphological positions in the lake basin. This accumulation of sediments illustrates the dynamic nature of the lake system and its paleoclimatic characteristics.
Apart from lithium carbonate, the lake has high content of borax and also contains mirabilite and other alkali metal salts with a total content of 360–410 g/L. The approximate elemental concentrations in the brine in g/L are as follows: Na (160), K (60), Li (1.5), Rb (0.25), Cs (0.1), SO4 (20), CO3 (90), Cl (120), Br (3), I (0.02), B (3). The water density is about 1.4 g/cm3 and pH about 10. The lithium content, 1.53 g/L, nearly corresponds to the solubility limit of lithium carbonate in water and is second highest in the world.
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