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USGS · 70187424

Early Holocene Great Salt Lake

Charles G. Oviatt·David B. Madsen·David M. Miller·Robert S. Thompson·John P. McGeehin
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Abstract

Shorelines and surficial deposits (including buried forest-floor mats and organic-rich wetland sediments) show that Great Salt Lake did not rise higher than modern lake levels during the earliest Holocene (11.5–10.2 cal ka BP; 10–9 14 C ka BP). During that period, finely laminated, organic-rich muds (sapropel) containing brine-shrimp cysts and pellets and interbedded sodium-sulfate salts were deposited on the lake floor. Sapropel deposition was probably caused by stratification of the water column — a freshwater cap possibly was formed by groundwater, which had been stored in upland aquifers during the immediately preceding late-Pleistocene deep-lake cycle (Lake Bonneville), and was actively discharging on the basin floor. A climate characterized by low precipitation and runoff, combined with local areas of groundwater discharge in piedmont settings, could explain the apparent conflict between evidence for a shallow lake (a dry climate) and previously published interpretations for a moist climate in the Great Salt Lake basin of the eastern Great Basin.

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Quaternary ResearchArticle
90° N90° S · 180° W ← longitude → 180° E
Source-reported bounding extent: 40.60978237983301° to 41.73033005046653° latitude; -113.20037841796875° to -111.8023681640625° longitude. This indicates report coverage, not an exact sampling location. View area on OpenStreetMap.

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Charles G. Oviatt, David B. Madsen, David M. Miller, Robert S. Thompson, John P. McGeehin. 2017-01-20. Early Holocene Great Salt Lake. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.yqres.2015.05.001

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