Soda Lake

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Soda Lake is the only alkaline sink in the county. It is about 1300 feet east/west and about 2000 feet north/south. It is a dry lake bed. It has also been called "Chittenden Lake" because it is near Old Chittenden Road and Chittenden Creek that flows into the Pajaro River.

Community

Nearest community is Aromas. Aromas is across Highway 129 in San Benito County (with parts in Monterey County).

History

From California Geology, July 1973, Vol. 26, No. 7: "...located on a terraced meander of the old Pajaro River. The lake rests on the terrace gravels which in turn rest on lake-bed silt and blue clay with fresh-water fossils. The elevation of Soda Lake is 140* feet, whereas the floor of the granite under the present river at Pajaro Gap is 75 feet. Soda Lake receives water and seepages from an oil spring on a fault which was mapped by Allen1 as passing under the lake. It is located in a cul-de-sac where local landslides in Pajaro Gap might temporarily form lakes behind the outlet. Soda Lake may have once been a much larger lake, a remnant left at the lower terminus of the Pleistocene [era] lakes. It is now trapped between two landslides."

*On the 1989 Survey of the USGS map, it lists Soda Lake at 151 feet above sea level.

Businesses

Soda Lake is on private property. Access road is behind a locked gate. (Because it is pasture land, and they don't want the cattle to escape.)

Transportation

Highway 129 is the closest public road. But the lake bed (or lake, if it has recently rained heavily) cannot be seen from the highway.

Maps

Soda Lake is on a USGS map:

Sequence	Latitude(DEC)	Longitude(DEC)	Latitude(DMS)	Longitude(DMS)	Map Name
1	36.9082859	-121.6082774	365430N	1213630W	Chittenden

[:Google Maps satellite view of Soda Lake

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