Rush Lake (Tooele County, Utah)

Last updated • 2 min readFrom Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia
Rush Lake
Rush Reservoir
USA Utah relief location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Rush Lake
Usa edcp relief location map.png
Red pog.svg
Rush Lake
Location Tooele County, Utah
Coordinates 40°26′28″N112°23′04″W / 40.44111°N 112.38444°W / 40.44111; -112.38444 Coordinates: 40°26′28″N112°23′04″W / 40.44111°N 112.38444°W / 40.44111; -112.38444 [1]
Type Endorheic
Primary outflows None
Basin  countriesUnited States (Rush-Tooele Valleys Watershed)
Surface area5 sq mi (13 km2)
Max. depth20 feet (6.1 m)
Surface elevation4,951 ft (1,509 m)
Frozennever
Islands Depends on lake level
Settlements Stockton, Tooele, Rush Valley

Rush Lake (also known as Rush Reservoir) is a shallow saline lake in Tooele County in the U.S. state of Utah. It is a remnant of Lake Bonneville, an ancient postglacial inland sea that covered much of the western United States during the Ice Ages. The lake is a natural impoundment of a stream that drains into the Great Salt Lake. [1] Rush Lake varies in size, evaporating at about 2 feet (0.61 m) per year, although occasional floods refill the lake. [1] The average surface elevation is 4,951 feet (1,509 m). [2]

Contents

Geography

The lake is located in a broad valley named Rush Valley near the town of Stockton and several miles south of Tooele, and is fed by snowmelt from six mountain ranges. These are the Sheeprock Mountains in the south, the East Tintic Mountains to the southeast, the Oquirrh Mountains to the east, South Mountain to the north, the Stansbury Mountains to the northwest and west, and the Onaqui Mountains to the southwest. The runoff from these mountain regions create only intermittent surface flow to the lake, but does reach it via groundwater seepage. The highest point in the watershed is Lowe Peak, at 10,590 feet (3,230 m). The outflow mostly consists of evaporation, and a very small amount seeps through the sandspit that impounds it from the main Great Salt Lake valley. [1]

The lake was isolated from Lake Bonneville approximately 15,000-17,000 years ago after evaporation lowered the lake level to below the natural Stockton Bar barrier between Rush Valley and Tooele Valley. During the ice ages, Rush Valley was merely one of many arms of Lake Bonneville. After Bonneville dried up, Rush Valley contained several pluvial lakes – Shambip, Smelter, and Rush – of which only Rush Lake remains today. [3]

Climate and ecology

Two major vegetation communities inhabit the Rush Lake watershed. These are sagebrush-grass and pinyon-juniper. The former is found in lower elevations and the valley floor, and the latter is found at higher elevations on the mountains along with other forms of alpine vegetation. The average annual precipitation is 10 to 40 inches (250 to 1,020 mm), and the annual frost-free season surrounding the lake ranges from 100 to 140 days. Cattle and sheep rangelands take up most of the catchment area. [1]

The lake is inhabited by several different species of fish. These include, in order of abundance, Utah chub, carp, green sunfish, bluegill, largemouth bass, channel catfish, yellow perch, black crappie, and black bullhead. The lake has not been stocked with fish since 1988, when 71,000 largemouth bass fry were released in the lake. [1]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Great Salt Lake</span> Salt lake in Utah, United States

The Great Salt Lake is the largest saltwater lake in the Western Hemisphere and the eighth-largest terminal lake in the world. It lies in the northern part of the U.S. state of Utah and has a substantial impact upon the local climate, particularly through lake-effect snow. It is a remnant of Lake Bonneville, a prehistoric body of water that covered much of western Utah.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tooele County, Utah</span> County in Utah, United States

Tooele County is a county in the U.S. state of Utah. As of the 2010 United States Census, the population was 58,218. Its county seat and largest city is Tooele. The county was created in 1850 and organized the following year.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Utah Lake</span> Freshwater lake in Utah County, Utah, United States

Utah Lake is a shallow freshwater lake in the center of Utah County, Utah, United States. It lies in Utah Valley, surrounded by the Provo-Orem metropolitan area. The lake's only river outlet, the Jordan River, is a tributary of the Great Salt Lake. Evaporation accounts for 42% of the lake's outflow, which leaves the lake slightly saline. The elevation of the lake is at 4,489 feet (1,368 m) above sea level. If the lake's water level rises above that, the pumps and gates on the Jordan River are left open. Recently the lake has been at a lower level because of a drought.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lake Bonneville</span> Former pluvial lake in western North America

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Great Basin</span> Large depression in western North America

The Great Basin is the largest area of contiguous endorheic watersheds, those with no outlets, in North America. It spans nearly all of Nevada, much of Utah, and portions of California, Idaho, Oregon, Wyoming, and Baja California. It is noted for both its arid climate and the basin and range topography that varies from the North American low point at Badwater Basin in Death Valley 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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Endorheic basin</span> Closed drainage basin that allows no outflow

An endorheic basin is a drainage basin that normally retains water and allows no outflow to other external bodies of water, such as rivers or oceans, but drainage converges instead into lakes or swamps, permanent or seasonal, that equilibrate through evaporation. They are also called closed or terminal basins, internal drainage systems, or simply basins. Endorheic regions contrast with exorheic regions. Endorheic water bodies include some of the largest lakes in the world, such as the Caspian Sea, the world's largest inland body of water.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Great Basin Desert</span> Desert in the western United States

The Great Basin Desert is part of the Great Basin between the Sierra Nevada and the Wasatch Range. The desert is a geographical region that largely overlaps the Great Basin shrub steppe defined by the World Wildlife Fund, and the Central Basin and Range ecoregion defined by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and United States Geological Survey. It is a temperate desert with hot, dry summers and snowy winters. The desert spans large portions of Nevada and Utah, and extends into eastern California. The desert is one of the four biologically defined deserts in North America, in addition to the Mojave, Sonoran, and Chihuahuan Deserts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jordan River (Utah)</span> River feeding the Great Salt Lake, USA

The Jordan River, in the state of Utah, United States, is a river about 51 miles (82 km) long. Regulated by pumps at its headwaters at Utah Lake, it flows northward through the Salt Lake Valley and empties into the Great Salt Lake. Four of Utah's six largest cities border the river: Salt Lake City, West Valley City, West Jordan, and Sandy. More than a million people live in the Jordan Subbasin, part of the Jordan River watershed that lies within Salt Lake and Utah counties. During the Pleistocene, the area was part of Lake Bonneville.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bonneville Salt Flats</span> Densely packed salt pan in Tooele County in northwestern Utah

The Bonneville Salt Flats are a densely packed salt pan in Tooele County in northwestern Utah. A remnant of the Pleistocene Lake Bonneville, it is the largest of many salt flats west of the Great Salt Lake. It is public land managed by the Bureau of Land Management and is known for land speed records at the Bonneville Speedway. Access to the Flats is open to the public.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bear River (Great Salt Lake)</span> River in southwestern Wyoming, southeastern Idaho, and northern Utah

The Bear River is the largest tributary of the Great Salt Lake, draining a mountainous area and farming valleys northeast of the lake and southeast of the Snake River Plain. It flows through southwestern Wyoming, southeastern Idaho, and northern Utah, in the United States. Approximately 350 miles (560 km) long it is the longest river in North America that does not ultimately reach the sea.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bear Lake (Idaho–Utah)</span> Lake on the Utah-Idaho border in the United States

Bear Lake is a natural freshwater lake on the Idaho–Utah border in the Western United States. About 109 square miles (280 km2) in size, it is split about equally between the two states; its Utah portion comprises the second-largest natural freshwater lake in Utah, after Utah Lake. The lake has been called the "Caribbean of the Rockies" for its unique turquoise-blue color, which is due to the refraction of calcium carbonate (limestone) deposits suspended in the lake. It's water properties have led to the evolution of several unique species of fauna that occur only within the lake. Bear Lake is over 250,000 years old. It was formed by fault subsidence that continues today, slowly deepening the lake along the eastern side. In 1911 the majority of the flow of the Bear River was diverted into Bear Lake via Mud Lake and a canal from Stewart Dam, ending 11,000 years of separation between the lake and that river system.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sevier River</span> River in central Utah, United States

The Sevier River is a 400-mile (640 km)-long river in the Great Basin of southwestern Utah in the United States. Originating west of Bryce Canyon National Park, the river flows north through a chain of high farming valleys and steep canyons along the west side of the Sevier Plateau before turning southwest and terminating in the endorheic basin of Sevier Lake in the Sevier Desert. It is used extensively for irrigation along its course, with the consequence that Sevier Lake is usually dry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rush Valley</span>

Rush Valley is a 30-mile (48 km) long north-trending valley in the southeast of Tooele County, Utah. It lies adjacent to and attached to the south of Tooele Valley; the separation point is the low point of the valley at Rush Lake, and lies at the southeast of the small mountain massif causing the separation, South Mountain at 6,541 feet (1,994 m). The region of Rush Lake is a marsh region, fed by various streams from the mountain regions east and west.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Great Salt Lake Desert</span> Large dry lake in northern Utah, United States

The Great Salt Lake Desert is a large dry lake in northern Utah, United States, between the Great Salt Lake and the Nevada border. It is a subregion of the larger Great Basin Desert, and noted for white evaporite Lake Bonneville salt deposits including the Bonneville Salt Flats.

Harkers Canyon is located 20 km (12 mi) west-southwest of downtown Salt Lake City, in Salt Lake County, Utah, US. The canyon empties into the Salt Lake Valley from its origin in the Oquirrh Mountains. The canyon is oriented primarily from southwest to northeast, with the middle third of the canyon descending from west to east. Harkers Canyon and surrounding land are owned and managed by the Kennecott Utah Copper Corporation and has been mined for copper.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Provo River</span> River in Utah, United States

The Provo River is located in Utah County and Wasatch County, Utah, in the United States. It rises in the Uinta Mountains at Wall Lake and flows about 71 miles (114 km) southwest to Utah Lake at the city of Provo, Utah.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Northern Basin and Range ecoregion</span>

The Northern Basin and Range ecoregion is a Level III ecoregion designated by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the U.S. states of Oregon, Idaho, Nevada, Utah, and California. It contains dissected lava plains, rolling hills, alluvial fans, valleys, and scattered mountain ranges in the northern part of the Great Basin. Although arid, the ecoregion is higher and cooler than the Snake River Plain to the north and has more available moisture and a cooler climate than the Central Basin and Range to the south. Its southern boundary is determined by the highest shoreline of Pleistocene Lake Bonneville, which once inundated the Central Basin and Range. The western part of the region is internally drained; its eastern stream network drains to the Snake River system.

The Pilot Valley Playa is a playa and salt pan in Box Elder County, Utah and Elko County, Nevada that is a remnant of Pleistocene Lake Bonneville. Located in northwestern Utah and northeastern Nevada, the Pilot Valley Playa varies from five to ten miles wide, and is thirty miles long, with an elevation just above 4200 feet. It is bordered by the Pilot Mountains to the west, and the Silver Island Mountains to the southeast.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Silver Island Range</span>

The Silver Island Range, also called the Silver Island Mountains, is a mountain range in Utah, United States, situated the northwest corner of Tooele County and the southwest corner of Box Elder County, about 15 miles (24 km) northeast of Wendover.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dugway Range</span>

The Dugway Range is a 13-mile (21 km) long mountain range located in central-south Tooele County, Utah, on the Juab County north border.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Utah Water Quality-Rush Lake" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2003-07-29. Retrieved 2009-02-20.
  2. "Rush Lake at FishingWorks" . Retrieved 2009-02-20.
  3. Wilson, James R., ed. (1992). Field Guide to Geologic Excursions in Utah. ISBN   9781557913197 . Retrieved 2009-02-20.