Companies have already been using the very hot mineralized brines to generate geothermal energy there for at least 40 years. They have nothing to do with the recent Salton Sea, nor any of the older lakes or marine incursions that have flooded the Salton trough for millions of years. The heat and minerals are generated by a spreading center segment, short but real, just like the one that’s producing the Icelandic eruption. The Salton Buttes are some very young volcanoes nearby, and there is a magma chamber there, too. The California spreading center would be deep below water in an extension of the Gulf of California were it not for many km. of sediment dumped on top by the Colorado river, much of it from the excavation of the Grand Canyon.
The only connection with the lake is that’s where the fresh water will end up.
