Great Salt Lake - Geography

Geography

The Great Salt Lake lends its name to Salt Lake City, originally named "Great Salt Lake City" by the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (known as the Mormon or LDS Church) Brigham Young, who led a group of Mormon pioneers to the Salt Lake Valley southeast of the lake on July 24, 1847.

The lake lies in portions of five counties: Box Elder, Davis, Tooele, Weber, and Salt Lake. Salt Lake City and its suburbs are located to the southeast and east of the lake, between the lake and the Wasatch Mountains, but land around the north and west shores is almost uninhabited. The Bonneville Salt Flats lie to the west, and the Oquirrh and Stansbury Mountains rise to the south.

The Great Salt Lake is fed by three major rivers and several minor streams. The three major rivers are each fed directly or indirectly from the Uinta Mountain range in northeastern Utah. The Bear River starts on the north slope of the Uintas and flows north past Bear Lake, into which some of Bear River's waters have been diverted via a man-made canal into the lake, but later empty back into the river by means of the Bear Lake Outlet. The river then turns south in southern Idaho and eventually flows into the northeast arm of the Great Salt Lake. The Weber River also starts on the north slope of the Uinta Mountains and flows into the east edge of the lake. The Jordan River does not receive its water directly from the Uintas, rather it flows from freshwater Utah Lake, which itself is fed primarily by the Provo River; the Provo River does originate in the Uintas, a few miles from the Weber and Bear. The Jordan flows from the north part of Utah Lake into the southeast corner of the Great Salt Lake.

A railroad line — the Lucin Cutoff — runs across the lake, crossing the southern end of Promontory Peninsula. The mostly solid causeway supporting the railway divides the lake into three portions: the northeast arm, northwest arm, and southern. This causeway prevents the normal mixing of the waters of the lake due to the fact that there are only three 100-foot (30 m) breaches. Because there are no rivers, with the exception of a few minor streams, flowing directly into the northwest arm, Gunnison Bay, it is now substantially saltier than the rest of the lake.