Lake Lahontan in the context of "Great Basin Divide"

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⭐ Core Definition: Lake Lahontan

Lake Lahontan was a large endorheic prehistoric lake during the Pleistocene that occupied modern northwestern Nevada and extended into northeastern California and southern Oregon. The area of the former lake is a large portion of the Great Basin that borders the Sacramento River watershed to the west.

The lake was named by Clarence King during the Geological Exploration of the Fortieth Parallel. The name honors Louis-Armand de Lom d'Arce de Lahontan, Baron de Lahontan, a French soldier and explorer.

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👉 Lake Lahontan in the context of Great Basin Divide

The Great Basin Divide in the western United States is the ridgeline that separates the Great Basin from the Pacific Ocean watershed, which completely surrounds it.

The Great Basin is the largest set of contiguous endorheic watersheds of North America, including six entire USGS watershed subregions. It contains the watersheds of several large prehistoric and still-existing lakes, most notably Lake Bonneville, Lake Lahontan, Lake Manly, and the Salton Sea. As such, it occupies most of present-day Nevada, about half of Utah, large parts of eastern California and Oregon, and small parts of Idaho, Wyoming, and Baja California. The arid climate of this area ensures that none of the major lake basins are filled to overflowing, and thus no precipitation falling into them reaches the sea.

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Lake Lahontan in the context of Black Rock Desert

The Black Rock Desert is a semi-arid region (in the Great Basin shrub steppe ecoregion) of lava beds and playa, or alkali flats, situated in the Black Rock Desert–High Rock Canyon Emigrant Trails National Conservation Area, a silt playa 100 miles (160 km) north of Reno, Nevada, that encompasses more than 300,000 acres (120,000 ha) of land and contains more than 120 miles (200 km) of historic trails. It is in the northern Nevada section of the Great Basin with a lakebed that is a dry remnant of Pleistocene Lake Lahontan.

The Great Basin, named for the geography in which water is unable to flow out and remains in the basin, is a rugged land serrated by hundreds of mountain ranges, dried by wind and sun, with spectacular skies and scenic landscapes. The average annual precipitation (in the years 1971–2000) at Gerlach (in the extreme south-west of the desert) is 7.90 inches (200 mm).

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Lake Lahontan in the context of Lake Bonneville

Lake Bonneville was the largest Late Pleistocene paleolake in the Great Basin of western North America. It was a pluvial lake that formed in response to an increase in precipitation and a decrease in evaporation as a result of cooler temperatures. The lake covered much of what is now western Utah and at its highest level extended into present-day Idaho and Nevada. Many other hydrographically closed basins in the Great Basin contained expanded lakes during the Late Pleistocene, including Lake Lahontan in northwestern Nevada.

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LINKED FROM (PARENTS)
← Black Rock Desert ← Great Basin Divide ← Lake Bonneville
LINKS TO (CHILDREN)
Endorheic basin → List of prehistoric lakes → Pleistocene → Nevada → California → Oregon → Great Basin → Sacramento River → Clarence King → Geological Exploration of the Fortieth Parallel → Louis-Armand de Lom d'Arce de Lahontan, Baron de Lahontan →