Stability of Borax Lake With Ansel Johnson, Michael Cummings and graduate student Sean Wilson. Borax lake is a hot spring located a few km from Fields in SE Oregon, in the Alvord Desert. Borax Lake is a located atop a small mound. The area around the hot spring has been armored with sinter and so now stands as a topographic high. Under the sinter is a diatomaceous material with very low remolded strength.
Borax Lake contains a unique species of chub that is on the endangered species list.
This gives the fish a wider range of water temperatures and helps keep the average temperature more stable. Increasing the water level has also increased some spring activity on the flanks of the mound. The morphology of the mound also suggest that there is some downslope movement of the flanks. Thus Borax lake is a saturated mound of poorly consolidated material, with very little remolded strength. This would either cause the lake to drain, or the volume of water to be reduced such that there would be a significant rise in temperature.