schlüggell
you are right. But, really the difference is Sodium and Potassium are the great 'activators' for water being the universal solvent for life. So much so that no matter how well you filter water on Earth there will always be some amount of both of those ions left in it.
Obviously other cations cause the electrolysis process as well, but remember oceanwater has all the minerals that land life needs in the proper proportion - its just that it is too concentrated for us. thus the point is Great Salt Lake main difference would be that the mineral proportions for Great Slat Lake seawater would be different from oceanwater.
Also, the term "Bacillus subtilis" is a fairly recent use of the nomenclature for those organisms in terms of certain modalities. Give me a spell and I'll trackdown several alternative names used...The big key is in terms of books published before/after WWII as the 'Latin' names were changed for many things, or placed to things that formerly had more common names and/or 'esoteric' origins.