| Great Salt Lake Desert | |
| Desert | |
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The desert's white sand is depicted in Utah's northwest.
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| Name origin: Great Salt Lake | |
| Country | United States |
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| State | Utah |
| County | Juab County, Tooele County |
| Part of | Great Salt Lake Desert watershed (7,200 sq mi)[1] of the Great Basin physiographic section |
| Borders on | Cedar Mountains, Silver Island, Hogup, Newfoundland, & Lakeside Range West (NV): Pilot Range. |
| Area | 4,000 sq mi (10,360 km2) |
| Biome | Central Basin and Range ecoregion |
The Great Salt Lake Desert is a large dry lake in northern Utah between the Great Salt Lake and the Nevada border which is noted for white sand from evaporite Lake Bonneville salt deposits. Several small mountain ranges crisscross through and along the edges of the desert, such as the Cedar Mountains, Lakeside Mountains, Silver Island Mountains, Hogup Mountains, and Newfoundland Mountains. On the western edge of the desert, just across the border with Nevada, stands Pilot Peak in the Pilot Range.
The desert is cool during the winter and includes unusual plants adapted to the dry conditions. Most of the desert receives less than 8 inches (200 mm) of annual precipitation. The military's Utah Test and Training Range is in the northern portion of the desert. The lowest part of Juab County is located just south of the Dugway Proving Grounds, about 1.5 miles (2.4 km) northwest of the northwest corner of the Fish Springs Range.[2]
During Jedediah Smith's 1826-7 expedition, Robert Evans died in the desert;[1] and in the 1840s, westward emigrants used the Hastings Cutoff through 130 kilometres (81 mi) of Great Salt Lake desert to reduce the distance to California. Howard Stansbury explored the desert in 1849.[2] The 1846 Donner Party difficulties in making the crossing contributed to their becoming snowbound in the Sierra Nevada. In 1956, Interstate 80 in Utah replaced the Wendover Cut-off across the desert, including a straight east-west section for ~50 miles (80 km) between the Cedar Mountains to the east and Wendover on the Utah/Nevada border. Following a railway completed across the desert's Bonneville Salt Flats in 1910, the flats were first used as a speedway in 1914.
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