Early Holocene Great Salt Lake
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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 14C 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.
Study Area
| Publication type | Article |
|---|---|
| Publication Subtype | Journal Article |
| Title | Early Holocene Great Salt Lake |
| Series title | Quaternary Research |
| DOI | 10.1016/j.yqres.2015.05.001 |
| Volume | 84 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Year Published | 2015 |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press |
| Contributing office(s) | Geology, Minerals, Energy, and Geophysics Science Center |
| Description | 12 p. |
| First page | 57 |
| Last page | 68 |
| Country | United States |
| State | Utah |
| Other Geospatial | Great Salt Lake |
| Google Analytic Metrics | Metrics page |