Deposit

Salton Sea

Salton Sea is a deposit with published resource estimates in California, recorded in the USGS lithium deposits in the United States selected-sites dataset (2020 release).

Facts on this page last re-verified Aug 18, 2026 — the oldest verification date among its current claims. How we verify.

Location: California, United States (33.229, -115.626 approx.)

Commodities: lithium; potash; boron; zinc; lead; sodium; potassium; calcium; magnesium; strontium; barium; rubidium; cesium; iron; manganese; silica; chloride

Deposit model: geothermal brine · unclassified

Geology

"Lithium occurs in the Salton Sea KGRA fluids, presumably as lithium chloride, since the predominant anion is chloride, with small amounts of bromide, fluoride, and sulfate also present. The major cations present in these geothermal fluids are sodium, calcium, potassium, and ammonia, with minor amounts of magnesium, rubidium, and cesium also present." (Berthold and Baker, Jr. (1976))

Published resource estimates

As compiled by USGS USMIN from the cited studies. Resource classes follow the source; "approximate" flags values USMIN reports as approximations. These are not current company reserve statements.

Material	Class	Amount	Grade	Contained	As of	Reference
lithium (Li)	Unclassified	—	—	—	Jan 1, 2011	Gruber and others (2011), Page 766, Table 2 — Gruber, P.W., Medina, P.A., Keoleian, G.A., Kesler, S.E., Everson, M.P. and Wallington, T.J., 2011, Global Lithium Availability—A Constraint for Electric Vehicles?: Journal of Industrial Ecology, v. 15, no. 5, p. 760-775. [Also available at https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1530-9290.2011.00359.x]
lithium (Li)	Possible	—	—	—	Jan 1, 1973	Brobst and Pratt (1973), Page 372, Table 73 — Brobst, D.A., and Pratt, W.P., 1973, United States Mineral Resources: U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 820, 722 p. [Also available at https://doi.org/10.3133/pp820]

Exploration and site history

Discovery — Discovered in 1927, 1927 (Laflin (1995))
Evaluation — Controlled Thermal Resources completed a geothermal resource assessment with plans of production in 2023, 2018 (Controlled Thermal Resources (2018))
Exploration — The first commercial geothermal well was brought in, 1964 (Laflin (1995))

Record imported from USGS USMIN ver. 4.0 (June 2019). Developments after that date appear on facility records, not here; see the methodology.

Sources

U.S. Geological Survey · published Jun 1, 2020 · retrieved Aug 18, 2026 · archive