| Great Basin | |
| region | |
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The Great Basin is the multi-state endorheic area surrounded by the Pacific Watershed of North America (Columbia Watershed on the north and the Colorado Watershed on the east and south).
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| Countries | United States, Mexico |
|---|---|
| Location | GNIS-designated point in Sheep Ranch Canyon near Winnemucca, Nevada [1] |
| - coordinates | [1] |
| Highest point | Mount Whitney summit |
| - location | Sierra Nevada Mountains |
| - elevation | 14,505 ft (4,421.1 m) |
| - coordinates | |
| Lowest point | Badwater Basin |
| - location | Death Valley National Park |
| - elevation | -282 ft (-86 m) |
| - coordinates | |
| Area | 184,427 sq mi (477,664 km2) [2] |
| - persistent water (average area) |
4,079 sq mi (10,565 km2) |
| Population | 3,163,941 |
| Orogeny | Basin and Range Province fault history |
| GNIS code | 2087988 [1] |
The Great Basin is the largest area of contiguous endorheic watersheds in North America and is noted for its arid conditions and Basin and Range topography that varies from the North American low point at Badwater Basin to the highest point of the contiguous United States, less than 100 miles (160 km) away at the summit of Mount Whitney. The region spans several physiographic divisions, biomes/ecoregions, and deserts, and is the ancestral homeland of the Great Basin tribes.
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The Great Basin includes valleys, basins, lakes, and mountain ranges[3] of Basin and Range topography. The Great Basin almost entirely contains the smaller Great Basin physiographic section, which extends about 10,000 sq mi (26,000 km2) into the Colorado River watershed (including the Las Vegas metropolitan area and northwest corner of Arizona). Geographic features near the Great Basin include the Continental Divide of the Americas, the Great Divide Basin, and the Gulf of California.
The Great Basin's two most populous metropolitan areas are Reno to the west and Salt Lake City on the east side. The area between these two cities is sparsely populated, but includes the smaller cities of Delta, Elko, Ely, Tonopah, Wendover, West Wendover, and Winnemucca. The southern area of the basin has the communities of Palmdale, Victorville, and Palm Springs. Major roadways traversing the Great Basin include Interstate 80, Interstate 15, U.S. Route 6, U.S. Route 50, U.S. Route 93, U.S. Route 95 and U.S. Route 395, with the Nevada section of U.S. Route 50 nicknamed "The Loneliest Road in America".[4] Railroad transportation routes also pass through Reno and Salt Lake City.
The Great Basin Divide separates the Great Basin from the watersheds draining to the Pacific Ocean. The southernmost portion of the Great Basin is the watershed area of the Laguna Salada. The Great Basin's longest and largest river is the Bear River of 350 mi (560 km),[5] and the largest single watershed is the Humboldt River drainage of roughly 17,000 sq mi (44,000 km2). Most Great Basin precipitation is snow, and the precipitation that neither evaporates nor is taken for human use will sink into groundwater aquifers, while evaporation of collected water occurs from geographic sinks.[6] Lake Tahoe, North America's largest alpine lake,[7] is part of the Great Basin's central Lahontan subregion. Great Basin named deserts include the Black Rock Desert, the Great Salt Lake Desert, the Sevier Desert, the Smoke Creek Desert, Nevada salt deserts in the Great Basin Province, the Mojave Desert, and part of the Sonoran Desert.
Although mostly within the North American Desert ecoregion, portions of the Great Basin extend into the Forested Mountain and Mediterranean California ecoregions. The semi-arid areas of the Forested Mountain ecoregion include the White Mountains and Inyo Mountains. Extending north of the 42nd parallel north, the Northern Basin and Range (ecoregion) has its southern border at the highest shoreline of the Pleistocene Lake Bonneville. The south edge of the Central Basin and Range ecoregion is in Nevada, north of the south edge of the Great Basin section.
In phytogeography, the Great Basin is within the Great Basin Floristic Province of the Madrean Region in southwestern North America, part of the Holarctic Kingdom of the northern Western Hemisphere.
Great Basin wildlife includes Pronghorn, Mule Deer, Mountain Lion, and Lagomorphs such as Black-tailed Jackrabbit and Desert Cottontail and the coyotes that prey on them. Packrats, Kangaroo rats and other small rodents are also common, but these are predominantly nocturnal. Elk and Bighorn Sheep are present but uncommon. Small lizards such as the Great Basin fence lizard, Longnose Leopard Lizard and Horned Lizard are common, especially in lower elevations. Rattlesnakes and Gopher snakes are also present. The Inyo Mountains Salamander is endangered. Shorebirds such as Phalaropes and Curlews can be found in wet areas. American White Pelicans are common at Pyramid Lake. Golden Eagles are perhaps more common in the Great Basin than anywhere else in the US. Mourning Dove, Western Meadowlark, Black-billed Magpie, and Common Raven are other common bird species.
Two endangered species of fish are found in Pyramid Lake: the Cui-ui sucker fish and the Lahontan cutthroat trout.[8]
Large invertebrates include tarantulas (Aphonopelma genus) and Mormon crickets. Exotic species, including Chukar, Grey Partridge, and Himalayan Snowcock, have been successfully introduced to the Great Basin, although the latter has only thrived in the Ruby Mountains. Cheatgrass, an invasive species which was unintentionally introduced, forms a critical portion of their diets. Feral horses (Mustangs) and wild burros are other highly reproductive, and ecosystem controversial, alien species. Most of the Great Basin is open range and domestic cattle and sheep are widespread.
Utah Juniper/Single-leaf Pinyon (southern regions) and Mountain Mahogany (northern regions) form open Pinyon-juniper woodland on the slopes of most ranges. Stands of Limber Pine and Great Basin Bristlecone Pine (Pinus longaeva) can be found in some of the higher ranges (the Methuselah tree is nearly 5000 years old). In riparian areas with dependable water cottonwoods (Populus fremontii) and Quaking Aspen (Populus tremuloides) groves exist. Grasslands contain the native Great Basin wildrye.
Sediment build-up over thousands of years between undersea ranges created relatively flat lacustrine plains in underwater portions of the prehistoric area that would be named the Great Basin after they drained.[9] For example, after forming about 32,000 years ago, Lake Bonneville overflowed about 14,500 years ago in the Bonneville Flood through Red Rock Pass and lowered to the "Provo Lake"[10] level (the Great Salt Lake, Utah Lake, Sevier Lake, Rush Lake, and Little Salt Lake remain).[11] Lake Lahontan, Lake Manly, and Lake Mojave were similar Pleistocene lakes.
Paleo-Indian habitation by the Great Basin tribes began as early as 10,000 B.C. (the Numic-speaking Shoshonean peoples arrived as late as 1000 A.D.).[12] Archaeological evidence of habitation sites along the shore of Lake Lahontan date from the end of the ice age when its shoreline was approximately 500 feet (150 m) higher along the sides of the surrounding mountains. The Great Basin was inhabited for at least several thousand years by Uto-Aztecan language group-speaking Native American Great Basin tribes, including the Shoshone, Ute, Mono, and Northern Paiute.
Exploration of the Great Basin occurred during the 18th century Spanish colonization of the Americas. The first American to cross the Great Basin from the Sierra Nevada was Jedediah Strong Smith in 1827. [13] Peter Skene Ogden of the British Hudson's Bay Company explored the Great Salt Lake and Humboldt River regions in the late 1820s, following the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada to the Gulf of California.[14] Benjamin Bonneville explored the northeast portion during an 1832 expedition. The United States had acquired control of the area north of the 42nd parallel via the 1819 Adams–Onís Treaty with Spain and 1846 Oregon Treaty with Britain. The US gained control of most of the rest of the Great Basin via the 1848 Mexican Cession. The first non-indigenous settlements were connected with the eastern regions of the 1848 California Gold Rush, with its immigrants crossing the Great Basin on the California Trail along Nevada's Humboldt River to Carson Pass in the Sierras. The first American religious settlement effort was the Mormon provisional State of Deseret in 1849 in present day Utah and northern Nevada. The Oregon Territory was established in 1848 and the Utah Territory in 1850.
In 1869 the First Transcontinental Railroad was completed at Promontory Summit in the Great Basin. Around 1902, the San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad was constructed in the lower basin and Mojave Desert for California-Nevada rail service to Las Vegas, Nevada.
To close a 1951 Indian Claims Commission case, the Western Shoshone Claims Distribution Act of 2004 established the United States payment of $117 million to the Great Basin tribe for the acquisition of 39,000 square miles (100,000 km2).[15] The Dixie Valley, Nevada, earthquake (6.6-7.1) in the Great Basin was in 1954. The Mojave and Colorado Deserts Biosphere Reserve (4 conserved areas) was designated in 1984, and in 1986, and 1994, the Great Basin National Park and the Mojave National Preserve were established. In 2009, the American Land Conservancy's Great Basin Program reserved the Green Gulch mule deer migration corridor as part of "over 80,000 acres [conserved] in Nevada and the Eastern Sierras".[16]
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