Data on the Surficial Deposits of the Great Salt Lake Desert, Bonneville Salt Flats and East Part of the Wendover 30' x 60' Quadrangles, Tooele County, Utah (OFR-724)

Data on the Surficial Deposits of the Great Salt Lake Desert, Bonneville Salt Flats and East Part of the Wendover 30' x 60' Quadrangles, Tooele County, Utah, by Charles G. Oviatt, Donald L. Clark, Jeremiah A. Bernau, and Brenda B. Bowen, 70 p., 2 appendices, OFR-724

The Utah Geological Survey (UGS) is conducting intermediate-scale geologic mapping of the Bonneville Salt Flats 30' x 60' quadrangle and the Utah part of the Wendover 30' x 60' quadrangle (figure 1). Year 3 of this multi-year mapping project covers an area encompassing nearly 20 7.5' quadrangles (about 1,200 square miles) over part of the Great Salt Lake Desert along the Interstate 80 corridor between Wendover and Knolls. This area also includes the Bonneville Salt Flats located northeast of Wendover. Much of the map area includes Quaternary surficial deposits in mudflats and salt flats, and locally the low-relief mudflats are covered with eolian sand or silt deposits in dunes and sheets. At places where all stratigraphic units are present, near-surface sediments typically consist of (in descending order) Holocene to late Pleistocene (post-Bonneville) mud deposited in playa environments, carbonate mud (“marl”) deposited offshore in Pleistocene Lake Bonneville, and carbonate mud deposited in pre-Bonneville (Pleistocene-Pliocene) shallow-lake and mudflat environments. In some areas, sediments of Lake Bonneville and post-Bonneville time are not present and pre-Bonneville mud is at the surface of the mudflats. Bedrock of Tertiary through Cambrian age is locally exposed in adjacent mountains and hills.


Media Type: Paper copy