VNII Galurgy Stock Co., St. Petersburg, Russia:

M. A. Berezin, Divisional Manager, mberezin@galurgy.sp.ru

The bittern salt lake Kuchuk located in Kulunda depression (Altai Region) and is an oval water body with a long (meridional) axis of 19 km and a short (latitudinal) axis of 12 km, the water area of about 170 sq. km and a depth of 2.5 m and volume of brine, on the average, 300 million m³. Lake Kuchuk is a source of raw material for production of sodium sulfate — the main product manufactured by “KuchukSulphate” Stock Co. since 1961. Reserves of mineral salts at Kuchuk deposit are concentrated in the surface brines and in bottomdwelling depositions, that is in the root deposit of the glass-like mirabilite and in covering sediments overlapping this root deposit. Covering sediments is a mixture of saline minerals (mirabilite, halite, and – in the summer season – thenardite) and gypsum-carbonate and organic silts. Capacity of Lake Kuchuk is constantly changing. During all time of the lake research there were produced ten single area measurements (topographical surveys) of its bottom marks and capacity evaluations. Dependence analysis of the Lake Kuchuk capacity on the level mark constructed from measurements during the survey years shows that capacity of the lake, in general, is increasing. The article presents the material of processing the results of field measurements of depth, volume and hypsometric marks at the bottom of Lake Kuchuk. It shows the lowering of marks for the roof of saline bottom depositions and the capacity increase of the lake. The observed decline of the marks for the saline bottom of the lake is associated with its exploitation by means of the geotechnological method when mining of sodium sulphate (bottom mirabilite) is being conducted by periodic pumping out of brines in the summer period, when the brines are most enriched with Na₂SO₄. Dynamics of decline in the marks for bottom depositions indicates the attenuation of the dissolution processes in the lens of the glass-like mirabilite.

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