The Mir Salt lake is located in the Talascica nature park on the Dugi otok island, about 20km southwards from Zadar. An interesting phenomenon is the tidal fluctuation of the water level related to the sea level with a certain time shift.

Mir Lake is a marine lake formed when Karst depression was filled with sea that penetrates inside through tiny cracks that are especially numerous on the northern side. Relief depression of the salt lake is special geomorphological phenomenon of the Park, situated between "Stene" and differentiated Karst peaks of Buhaja and Poljica. It is 10 m deep, maximum length is 960 m and width 300 m. It is saltier that the surrounding sea because of the pronounced evaporation. The bottom is rocky and silty. Fine curative grey silt (fango) can be found at the bottom of the SE part. Temperature amplitudes of the lake water are very prominent (in the summer up to 33°C and in the winter up to 5°C). Because of that the lake is warmer than the coastal sea in the summer and colder in the winter. That is the result of its shallowness. In the winter at very low temperatures the lake can freeze so living conditions are very difficult. Because of that relatively small number of organisms can survive, but in great populations. Besides plankton, there are several species of periwinkles, mussels, shrimps and gobies in the lake and an eel that is called "kajman" by the locals.

Dugi Otok belongs to the Dinarides, which form a mountain chain in southern Europe, spanning areas of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Monte Negro and Albania. During the Alpine earth movements that occurred 50-100 million years ago (mesozoic era), immense lateral pressures folded and overthrust the rocks in a great arc around the old rigid block of the north-east. Thanks to a long-term tectonic descent of the Croatian coast, the partially submerged western Dinaric Alps form the numerous islands (Krk, Rab, Pag, Brac, Hvar...) and harbors. The western Dinarides have a character of a parallel chain of long islands, which are in fact ridges jutting out from the sea.

The area of Telascica Bay is formed of tertiary sedimentary rocks of limestone, which were dissoluted into karst landscape. There was no natural outlet and when the water evaporates rapidly and the drainage surface of the water table had a higher-than-normal salt content in Salt lake Mir. (The carbonic acid, that causes these features, is formed as rain passes through the atmosphere picking up CO2, which dissolves in the water. Once the rain reaches the ground, it may pass through soil that may provide further CO2 to form a weak carbonic acid solution: H2O + CO2 -> H2CO3 .)