In AWRA's March-April 2022 issue of Water Resources IMPACT The Lakes Sampler is a great piece by friend Elaine J. Hanford, familiar to many of you for her 'Bulletin Boards' I post each Monday. It's a fascinating story of the creation and demise of the great lakes that once occupied the Great Basin - mainly Utah, Nevada and yes, even Oregon. Think Great Salt Lake, Pyramid Lake (Nevada), and yes, Oregon's Lake Abert and Summer Lake, both remnants of Lake
Chewaucan. Here are my earlier posts about Lake Abert:
My Ten Cents: Lake Abert Redux - Who Cares? (16 January 2022) and
My Ten Cents: Lake Abert Redux Revisited - Who Cares? Lots? Well, Maybe a Few (5 February 2022)
I cut my hydrologic teeth in the Great Basin of Nevada, very similar to Oregon east of the Cascade Range. The western part of the USA is known for its pluvial (sometimes called 'glacial') lakes, which formed during the Pleistocene Epoch, when the climate was wetter than now because of the effects of the continental glaciation to the north. My former Desert Research Institute colleagues Marty Mifflin and Peg Wheat were experts on these lakes and I learned a lot from them. Here is their classic 1979 publication, Pluvial lakes and estimated pluvial climates of Nevada.
Download Mifflin_Wheat_Pluvial_Lakes_NV
Elaine's article does them justice.
Download Hanford Water Resources IMPACT March:April 2022
Here are her first two paragraphs:
Anyone who has lived in the Great Basin of the Western United States has vivid memories of the impacts of the Pineapple Express (a.k.a., atmospheric rivers). Torrential rains that spawned mudslides and debris flow or epic snowstorms that enhanced snowpacks by tens of feet and supported skiers well into the summer months are memorable because they bring vast amounts of precipitation to a currently water-stressed region. More recent headlines have bemoaned the impacts of drought on the Great Salt Lake in Utah and the demise of Lake Abert in south-central Oregon.
The vagaries of weather can vary from season to season, year to year, or even decade to decade. But geology and hydrology remind us that we must view such conditions in the longer term, by understanding the history of pluvial lakes in the Great Basin as climate has fluctuated. Scientific understanding of the changes over geologic time can help minimize unintended consequences of human activities and support more sustainable interactions with our environment.
Great job, Elaine!
"Eternity's a terrible thought. I mean, where's it all going to end?" - Tom Stoppard
Many thanks, Michael!
I enjoyed the challenge of writing a limited-length overview of the Pluvial Lakes of the Great Basin. So much more that has and could be written about the existence and fluctuation of pluvial lakes in the Late Pleistocene to build upon the iconic work of Roger Morrison and Jonathan Davis for Lake Lahontan and by Marty Mifflin and Peg Wheat for conditions throughout Nevada.
Morrison, RB 1964 Lake Lahontan: Geology of southern Carson Desert, Nevada. USGS Professional Paper 401.
https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/pp401
Davis, Jonathan O. 1977 Late Quaternary Tephrochronology in the Lake Lahontan Area, Nevada and California. Research Paper No. 7. Nevada Archeological Survey
https://www.proquest.com/openview/7788f7a16f4b1648ee3b1934d35f8c98/1
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-antiquity/article/jonathan-o-davis-1-19481990/A2909BB61DE9E45DE704455E51C59048
Posted by: EJ Hanford. PhD | Wednesday, 20 April 2022 at 11:18 AM