Molecular and Phenetic Characterization of the Bacterial Assemblage of Hot Lake, WA, an Environment with High Concentrations of Magnesium Sulfate, and Its Relevance to Mars.

Hot Lake (Oroville, WA) is an athalassohaline epsomite lake that can have precipitating concentrations of MgSO salts, mainly epsomite. Little biotic study has been done on epsomite lakes and it was unclear whether microbes isolated from epsomite lakes and their margins would fall within recognized halotolerant genera, common soil genera, or novel phyla. Our initial study cultivated and characterized epsotolerant bacteria from the lake and its margins.