Lake Bonneville

E303531

Lake Bonneville was a massive prehistoric pluvial lake that once covered much of present-day Utah and surrounding areas during the last Ice Age, leaving behind features such as the Great Salt Lake and prominent shoreline terraces.

All labels observed (2)

Label Occurrences
Lake Bonneville canonical 3
Lake Lahontan 1

How this entity was disambiguated

Statements (48)

Predicate Object
instanceOf paleolake
prehistoric pluvial lake
climateType pluvial climate conditions
country United States
drainageBasin Bonneville Basin
linked to: Great Basin
drainageEvent Bonneville flood
evidenceType beach gravels
strandlines
wave-cut benches
existedDuring last Ice Age
extendedInto Idaho
Nevada
hydrologicSetting endorheic basin
influencedLandforms Bonneville Salt Flats
Wasatch Front shoreline terraces
linked to: Wasatch Front
leftFeature Bonneville shoreline
Gilbert shoreline
Provo shoreline
leftRemnant Great Salt Lake
Sevier Lake
Utah Lake
locatedIn Great Basin
present-day Utah
maximumDepth approximately 1000 feet
approximately 300 meters
maximumSurfaceArea approximately 20,000 square miles
approximately 51,000 square kilometers
maximumVolume approximately 9,500 cubic kilometers
modernBasinName Great Basin subregion: Bonneville Basin
modernRemnantType freshwater lake (Utah Lake)
saline lake (Great Salt Lake)
namedAfter Benjamin Louis Eulalie de Bonneville
notableEvent catastrophic overflow and incision at Red Rock Pass
outletLocation Red Rock Pass, Idaho
overflowedInto Columbia River system
linked to: Columbia River

Snake River
primaryWaterSource glacial meltwater
precipitation
reasonForDesiccation increased evaporation
postglacial climate warming
reduced precipitation
regionToday Wasatch Front metropolitan area
shorelineElevation Bonneville shoreline about 1550 meters above sea level
Provo shoreline about 1460 meters above sea level
studiedInDiscipline Quaternary geology
geomorphology
paleoclimatology
timePeriod Pleistocene epoch

How these facts were elicited

Referenced by (4)

Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.

Grove Karl Gilbert notableWork Lake Bonneville
Grove Karl Gilbert studied Lake Bonneville
Lahontan Dam namedAfter Lake Lahontan
linked to: Lake Bonneville
Utah Lake formedAsRemnantOf Lake Bonneville