Lake Bonneville Flooding : Ancient Beachfront Property in Idaho
Alex Schumacher
College of Western Idaho
Introduction
The world has been shaped by many events. Like a sculpture each piece was a result of an event that made it that way. The Snake River Canyon is no different, most of upper Utah and part southern Idaho show the scars of an event that rocked the landscape into what it is today. When researching and digging in the region you can find remnants of an old marine environment, from sediment deposits to river terraces hundreds of feet high. It’s confusing to think of the area as a giant lake with sandy beaches and powerful waves, but the overflow of this huge lake is what created most of the landscape you can see today. The great Bonneville flood was the world second largest flood, emptying over 32,000 square miles of lake volume. (Utah Geological Society) The flood that the this overfill caused carved through many areas and created the beautiful valley that can be seen there. However, this didn’t just happen over night. The pre-flood history, flood event, specific flood deposits all played an important role in shaping this large Geological marvel. Understanding what happened back then can give us a good glimpse into better understanding the region today, which can lead to better predicting and preserving for the future.
The Lake was named for Benjamin Bonneville, a 1830‘s US Army Officer would was involved in many ventures in the Pacific Northwest, however it was geologist G.K, Gilbert who was one of the first to start studying the region’s prehistoric past that decided to name the lake to honor all that the Officer contributed to the region. (“Lake bonneville,” 2008) While the lake r...
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...e deposits of the Bonneville flood make it one of the most competent in North America. The
Conclusion
While some might say that Lake Bonneville seems like “forever ago,” it is actually a really young feature. With the Lake mainly forming and flooding around 20,000 years ago it’s not even scraping the surface of the forever ago that the earth was even formed into what we know today. Even mammals and the human race has only been on the planet for a blink of an eye in the earth’s relative history. With the best knowledge adn research dating the earth to 4.5 billion years the Flood’s actual stamp on the timeline would be much much closer then we would think. Not only did Lake Bonnevile create some beautiful geography, it also left strong, powerful scars in the form of river terraces and shorelines giving us a good glimpse into the physical histroy of the region.
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