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Early Holocene Great Salt Lake, USA

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Charles G. Oviatt ,
David B. Madsen ,
David M. Miller ,
Robert S. Thompson  and
John P. McGeehin
Charles G. Oviatt*
Affiliation:
Department of Geology, Thompson Hall, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS 66506, USA
David B. Madsen
Affiliation:
Research School of Arid Environment and Climate Change, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, Gansu 73000, China
David M. Miller
Affiliation:
U.S. Geological Survey, 345 Middlefield Road, MS-973, Menlo Park, CA 94025, USA
Robert S. Thompson
Affiliation:
U.S. Geological Survey, Box 25046, MS 980, Denver Federal Center, Denver, CO 80225, USA
John P. McGeehin
Affiliation:
U.S. Geological Survey, 12201 Sunrise Valley Drive, Reston, VA 20192, USA
*
*Corresponding author.E-mail address:[email protected] (C.G. Oviatt).
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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.

Keywords

eastern Great BasinGreat Salt Lakeearly Holocene climatesapropelradiocarbon dating
Type
Articles
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 84 , Issue 1 , July 2015 , pp. 57 - 68
Copyright
University of Washington

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