Everything about The Great Salt Lake Desert totally explained
The
Great Salt Lake Desert is a large
playa in northern
Utah, located west of the
Great Salt Lake. It is an arid region extending west from the Great Salt Lake to the
Nevada border. It covers an area of 4,000 square miles (10,360 km²).
The sand there's white due to the high concentration of
salt in the soil. The salt comes mainly from
evaporite deposits left by the extinct
Lake Bonneville, of which only the
Great Salt Lake and
Utah Lake remain. Several small mountain ranges crisscross through and along the edges of the desert, such as the
Cedar Mountains,
Lakeside Mountains,
Silver Island Mountains,
Hogup Mountains, and
Newfoundland Mountains. On the western edge of the desert, just across the border with Nevada, stands
Pilot Peak.
The Great Salt Lake Desert is perhaps most historically significant as the location of much of
Hastings Cutoff, an alternative
wagon route for westward emigration to
California promoted in the 1840s. Difficulties experienced by the
Donner Party in making the 130 km (80 mile) crossing of this region in
1846 contributed to their becoming snowbound in the
Sierra Nevada later that year.
A large portion of the desert is used by the
military. A section of
Hill Air Force Base is to the north and the
Wendover Gunnery Range and
Dugway Proving Grounds are to the south. A large section of the desert is still accessible though, where
I-80 (which replaced the
Wendover Cut-off) crosses the desert. The interstate runs exactly east-west and is dead straight for almost 50 miles, between the Cedar Mountains to the east and
Wendover on the Utah/Nevada border. The
Bonneville Salt Flats have a race track that was the location for
land speed records set during the 50s, 60s and 70s. The desert is also home to the
Skull Valley Indian Reservation.
The only significant settlements in the desert are
Wendover and
Dugway, with only about 1,500 residents each.
Certain unusual plants can be found there, having adapted to the harsh conditions. The desert is hot during the summer and cool during the winter. It is warmer than the rest of northern Utah but is cooler than most of the south. Most of the desert receives less than 8 in (20 cm) of precipitation annually.
This region was the site of many unusual experiments made by Dr.
Thomas Henry Moray.
Further Information
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