San Salvador Island (24o05'N, 74o30'W), located in the southeastern edge of the Bahamian Archipelago, possesses numerous small hypersaline lakes. San Salvador is a small island (~ 180 km2), isolated from other Bahamian Islands (the nearest island is > 50 km away), and supports a small human population (< 2,500). The earliest recorded observation of the hypersaline lakes (45 to >160 ‰) is contained in the diary of Christopher Columbus, who is thought to have first set foot in the New World on San Salvador. Dense microbial mats blanket the shallow sediments in many of these lakes and are the dominant biotic feature. The lakes are virtually unimpacted by terrigenous, atmospheric, or anthropogenic nutrient inputs. By far, the largest perturbations the lakes experience are the freshwater and sediment inputs attributable to hurricanes and other major storms.