Great Salt Lake, shallow body of saltwater, NW Utah, between the Wasatch Range on the east and the Great Salt Lake Desert on the west; largest salt lake in North America. Fed by the Weber, Jordan, and Bear rivers, the lake varies greatly in size and depth according to weather changes. Its average depth ranges from 13 to 24 ft (4 to 7.3 m). From 1,000 sq mi (2,590 sq km) in the period between 1955 and 1975, the lake expanded to its modern maximum of almost 2,500 sq mi (6,477 sq km) by the mid-1980s. Storage of spring run-off in reservoirs to meet domestic and industrial demands for water have contributed to seasonal lake shrinkage. The salt content, nearly 10% at its greatest size, increases as the water level decreases. Magnesium chloride, potash, and common table salt have been commercially extracted from the lake. The heavy brine supports no life except brine shrimp and colonial algae. The Great Salt Lake is a remnant of prehistoric Lake Bonneville, which covered an extensive area of the Great Basin and was once c.1,000 ft (305 m) deep. Its various levels are marked by former beachlines on the mountains and by rich soil deposits on the terraces to the east, where irrigated farming is practiced. Antelope and Fremont islands are the largest islands in the lake; the smaller islands are rookeries for sea gulls and other birds. Promontory Point, a mountainous peninsula 20 mi (32 km) long, extends into the lake from the north; a railroad cutoff on a causeway passes through the neck as it crosses the lake and the Great Salt Lake Desert from Ogden to Lucin, Utah. The Bonneville Salt Flats, in the western part of the desert, is a world-famous automobile racing ground. In 1845 the U.S. explorer John Frémont Frémont, John Charles, 1813–90, American explorer, soldier, and political leader, b. Savannah, Ga. He taught mathematics to U.S. naval cadets, then became an assistant on a surveying expedition (1838–39) between the upper Mississippi River and the
..... Click the link for more information. became the first person to cross the salt desert.

Bibliography

See D. L. Morgan, The Great Salt Lake (1986); H. Stansbury, Exploration of the Valley of the Great Salt Lake (1988).

Great Salt Lake

Lake, northern Utah, U.S. It is the largest inland body of salt water in the Western Hemisphere and one of the most saline in the world. It fluctuates greatly in size, depending on rates of evaporation and the flow of the rivers into it. Its surface area has varied from about 2,400 sq mi (6,200 sq km) at its highest levels in 1873 and the mid 1980s to about 950 sq mi (2,460 sq km) at its low level in 1963. At times of median water level, it is generally less than 15 ft (4.5 m) deep. Surrounded by stretches of sand, salt land, and marsh, the lake remains isolated, though in recent years it has become important as a source of minerals, as a beach and water-sports attraction, and as a wildlife preserve.

Great Salt Lake

a shallow salt lake in NW Utah, in the Great Basin at an altitude of 1260 m (4200 ft.): the area has fluctuated from less than 2500 sq. km (1000 sq. miles) to over 5000 sq. km (2000 sq. miles)