1.
Salt pan (geology)
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Natural salt pans or salt flats are flat expanses of ground covered with salt and other minerals, usually shining white under the Sun. They are found in deserts, and are natural formations, a salt pan forms by evaporation of a water pool such as a lake or pond. This happens in climates where the rate of water exceeds the rate of precipitation. If the water drain into the ground, it remains on the surface until it evaporates. Over thousands of years, the minerals accumulate on the surface and these minerals reflect the Suns rays and often appear as white areas. The crust of salt can conceal a quagmire of mud that can engulf a truck, the Qattara Depression in the eastern Sahara desert contains many such traps which served as strategic barriers during World War II. The Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, where land speed records have been set, is a well-known salt pan in the arid regions of the western United States. The Etosha pan, in the Etosha National Park in Namibia, is another prominent example of a salt pan, the Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia is the largest salt pan in the world. It contains 50%-70% of the worlds lithium reserves, dry lake Pan Sabkha Salt evaporation pond Salt lake Sink Solonchak Briere, Peter R. Playa, playa lake, sabkha, Proposed definitions for old terms. Lowenstein, Tim K. Lawrence A. Hardie, criteria for the recognition of salt-pan evaporites
2.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
3.
Utah
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Utah is a state in the western United States. It became the 45th state admitted to the U. S. on January 4,1896, Utah is the 13th-largest by area, 31st-most-populous, and 10th-least-densely populated of the 50 United States. Utah has a population of more than 3 million, approximately 80% of whom live along the Wasatch Front, Utah is bordered by Colorado to the east, Wyoming to the northeast, Idaho to the north, Arizona to the south, and Nevada to the west. It also touches a corner of New Mexico in the southeast, approximately 62% of Utahns are reported to be members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or LDS, which greatly influences Utahn culture and daily life. The LDS Churchs world headquarters is located in Salt Lake City, Utah is the only state with a majority population belonging to a single church. The state is a center of transportation, education, information technology and research, government services, mining, in 2013, the U. S. Census Bureau estimated that Utah had the second fastest-growing population of any state. St. George was the metropolitan area in the United States from 2000 to 2005. Utah also has the 14th highest median income and the least income inequality of any U. S. state. A2012 Gallup national survey found Utah overall to be the best state to live in based on 13 forward-looking measurements including various economic, lifestyle, the name Utah is derived from the name of the Ute tribe. It means people of the mountains in the Ute language, according to other sources Utah is derived from the Apache name Yudah which means Tall. These Native American tribes are subgroups of the Ute-Aztec Native American ethnicity and were sedentary, the Ancestral Pueblo people built their homes through excavations in mountains, and the Fremont people built houses of straw before disappearing from the region around the 15th century. Another group of Native Americans, the Navajo, settled in the region around the 18th century, in the mid-18th century, other Uto-Aztecan tribes, including the Goshute, the Paiute, the Shoshone, and the Ute people, also settled in the region. These five groups were present when the first European explorers arrived, the southern Utah region was explored by the Spanish in 1540, led by Francisco Vásquez de Coronado, while looking for the legendary Cíbola. A group led by two Catholic priests—sometimes called the Dominguez-Escalante Expedition—left Santa Fe in 1776, hoping to find a route to the coast of California, the expedition traveled as far north as Utah Lake and encountered the native residents. The Spanish made further explorations in the region, but were not interested in colonizing the area because of its desert nature, in 1821, the year Mexico achieved its independence from Spain, the region became known as part of its territory of Alta California. European trappers and fur traders explored some areas of Utah in the early 19th century from Canada, the city of Provo, Utah was named for one, Étienne Provost, who visited the area in 1825. The city of Ogden, Utah was named after Peter Skene Ogden, in late 1824, Jim Bridger became the first known English-speaking person to sight the Great Salt Lake. Due to the salinity of its waters, Bridger thought he had found the Pacific Ocean
4.
Tooele County, Utah
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Tooele County /tuːˈɪlə/ is a county located in the U. S. state of Utah. As of the 2010 census, the population was 58,218 and its county seat and largest city is Tooele. The county was created in 1850 and organized the following year, Tooele County is part of the Salt Lake City, UT Metropolitan Statistical Area. A2008 CNNMoney. com article identified Tooele as the U. S. county experiencing the greatest job growth since 2000. Evidence of several indigenous Native American groups has found in Tooele County. The Goshutes traditional territory includes most of modern Tooele County, the Great Salt Lake Desert, which comprises much of the northern portion of the county, provided a major stumbling block for the ill-fated Donner-Reed Party in 1846. Its crusty sand slowed the groups wagons to such an extent that the spent six days crossing its 80-mile length. In 1849 the first white settlers established permanent roots in the Tooele Valley and they were members of the Latter-day Saint emigration group which had arrived in 1847. Building a sawmill, the settlement was called E. T, City after LDS leader E. T. Benson. The territorial legislature first designated Tooele County—initially called Tuilla—in January 1850 with significantly different boundaries and it is speculated that the name derives from a Native American chief, but controversy exists about whether such chief lived. Alternate explanations hypothesize that the name comes from tu-wanda, the Goshute word for bear, or from tule, Tooele was one of the six original counties in Deseret, which would become Utah Territory. By 1852, Grantsville, Batesville, and Pine Canyon were settled, in 1855 the town of Richville was designated county seat, but it soon became clear that Tooele was much larger. In 1861 the territorial legislature allowed the county to select a new seat, tension with native Goshutes plagued settlement in early Tooele County. In response to cattle thefts, a contingent of at least 50 men pursued Goshutes and attacked their camp in 1851, similar attacks occurred throughout the 1850s with natives typically being on the losing side. Jarvis, a U. S. Bureau of Indian Affairs representative, the results looked promising, but Jarvis resigned in 1860 and support for the project disappeared, causing the farm to be abandoned. Twenty-two overland stagecoach outposts were built in Goshute territory, often on the sites of natural springs. Goshute attacks on mail outposts escalated in 1860, resulting in dozens of deaths in alternating waves of raids, Connor acted ruthlessly toward the natives. He killed over 300 Shoshone in Southern Idaho in 1863, connors men attacked Native American camps, sometimes indiscriminately, but through 1863 stage coach companies had lost 16 men and over 150 horses to depredations
5.
Great Salt Lake Desert
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The Great Salt Lake Desert is a large dry lake in northern Utah, United States between the Great Salt Lake and the Nevada border which is noted for white evaporite Lake Bonneville salt deposits. On the western edge of the desert, just across the border with Nevada, 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 of annual precipitation, the salt crust covering the desert reforms each year when the rain evaporates. The militarys Utah Test and Training Range is in the portion of the desert. The lowest part of Juab County is located just south of the Dugway Proving Grounds, the 1846 Donner Party difficulties in making the crossing contributed to their becoming snowbound in the Sierra Nevada. Howard Stansbury explored the desert in 1849, in 1956, I-80 replaced the Wendover Cut-off across the desert, including a straight east-west section for ~50 miles between the Cedar Mountains to the east and Wendover on the Utah/Nevada border. Following a railway completed across the deserts Bonneville Salt Flats in 1910, the world records for highest land speeds are regularly broken here. The Great Salt Lake Desert experiences a climate with hot summers. The desert is an excellent example of a desert climate. The deserts elevation,4,250 feet above sea level, makes temperatures cooler than lower elevation deserts, due to the high elevation and aridity, temperatures drop sharply after sunset. Winter highs are generally above freezing, and winter nights are bitterly cold, media related to Great Salt Lake Desert at Wikimedia Commons
6.
Interstate 80 in Utah
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Interstate 80 is a part of the Interstate Highway System that runs from San Francisco, California, to Teaneck, New Jersey. The portion of the highway in the U. S. state of Utah is 196. 35-mile-long, from west to east, I-80 crosses the state line from Nevada in Tooele County and traverses the Bonneville Salt Flats—which are a part of the larger Great Salt Lake Desert. It continues alongside the Wendover Cut-off—the corridor of the former Victory Highway—U. S, Route 40 and the Western Pacific Railroad Feather River Route. After passing the Oquirrh Mountains, I-80 enters the Salt Lake Valley, a short portion of the freeway is concurrent with I-15 through Downtown Salt Lake City. I-80 was built along the corridor of the Lincoln Highway and the Mormon Trail through the Wasatch Range, the easternmost section also follows the historical routes of the First Transcontinental Railroad and US-30S. Construction of the highway began in the 1950s, and by the late 1970s most of the freeway across the state of Utah had been completed. The four-and-a-half-mile-long section of I-80 between Utah State Route 68 and the Salt Lake City International Airport was the last piece of the nearly 2, 900-mile-long freeway to be completed. Average daily traffic volumes in 2012 ranged between 6,765 vehicles using the freeway at SR-58 and 121,205 vehicles using the freeway at the Spaghetti Bowl in Downtown Salt Lake City, throughout the state, the highway is also known as the Purple Heart Trail. Out of the states which I-80 passes through, the 196. 34-mile-long segment in Utah is the fourth shortest. The longest stretch of I-80 in a state is the 455. 32-mile-long segment in Nebraska. As part of the Interstate Highway System, the route is listed on the National Highway System, a system of roads that are important to the nations economy, defense. Every year, the Utah Department of Transportation conducts a series of surveys on its highways to measure traffic volumes and this measure is expressed in terms of average annual daily traffic, a measure of traffic volume for any average day of the year. Between seven and 58 percent of the traffic recorded consisted of trucks and these counts are for the portion of the freeway in Utah. The freeway enters Utah from Nevada in the city of Wendover on the edge of the Bonneville Salt Flats, the cities of West Wendover, Nevada and Wendover are accessible by I-80s only business loop in Utah, whose interchange is just south of Danger Cave. Bonneville Speedway, home to land speed records, is accessible from I-80. In the middle of the flats is a concrete sculpture, Metaphor, The Tree of Utah. Bounded on each sides by military training grounds, the I-80 corridor is overflown by commercial airliners traveling west from Salt Lake City International Airport, the freeway veers north around the Cedar Mountains in a small gap between them and the Lakeside Mountains. Further east, the passes the Stansbury Mountains, which are located in the Wasatch-Cache National Forest
7.
West Wendover, Nevada
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West Wendover is a small city in Elko County, Nevada, United States. The population was 4,410 at the 2010 census and it is part of the Elko micropolitan area. West Wendover is located on the border of Nevada and the western edge of the Great Salt Lake Desert and is contiguous with Wendover, Utah. Interstate 80 runs just north of the cities, while Interstate 80 Business runs through the two cities, West Wendover began to develop in the 1930s and 1940s with the introduction of legalized gambling in the State of Nevada. William Bill Smith founded a small service station that provided a needed rest to weary travelers crossing the desert terrain of western Utah. Today this facility is known as the Wendover Nugget, through the 1970s and 1980s, West Wendover began to emerge as a destination resort. Additional business arrived constructing more casinos, hotels and other establishments as well as recreational venues such as the Toana Vista Golf Course. As growth continued to spiral up, the citizens of West Wendover, Nevada, then a township of Elko County, on July 1,1991, the city of West Wendover, Nevada, came into existence. Amber S Holt named the city seal of West Wendover encouraging people to, in October 1999, the U. S. Department of Transportation moved West Wendover out of the Pacific Time Zone due to the strong economic ties between West Wendover and neighboring Utah. This made the city of West Wendover the only portion of Nevada legally in the Mountain Time Zone, the unincorporated towns of Jackpot, Jarbidge, Mountain City, and Owyhee in northern Elko County also observe Mountain Time, but only on an unofficial basis. West Wendover has thrived under a lucrative gambling industry in Nevada, meanwhile, just footsteps away, Wendover, Utah has decayed with almost no business tax base. Residents in both cities have voted to annex Wendover into Nevada, saying they are one community that has been divided for too long, some politicians in both the State of Utah and the State of Nevada have endorsed the idea. However, the politicians in Wendover, Utah, placed a permanent halt to the process through a vote on November 15,2006. The motion made was to halt the annexation process, the vote was a tie with two Council Members voting to halt the process and two Council Members supporting the continuation of the process. The tie vote was broken up by a vote of Wendover, previously, West Wendover had decided to halt any further work after Wendover, Utah, indicated they were going to discuss and make a decision on proceeding. Article IV, Section 3 of the U. S, constitution requires that any change in state boundaries be approved by the U. S. Congress as well as by the two state legislatures. West Wendover is located at 40°44′22″N 114°4′11″W, according to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 7.5 sq mi, all land. As of the 2010 United States census West Wendover had a population of 4,410, as of the census of 2000, there were 4,721 people,1,363 households, and 1,046 families residing in the city
8.
Bonneville Speedway
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Bonneville Speedway is an area of the Bonneville Salt Flats near Wendover, Utah, that is marked out for motor sports. It is particularly noted as the venue for numerous speed records. The salt flats were first used for sports in 1912. A reduction of available racing surface and salt thickness has led to the cancellation of events at Bonneville, available racing surface is much reduced with just 2.5 miles available instead of the 9 mile courses traditionally used for Speed Week. Historically, the speedway was marked out by the Utah Department of Transportation at the start of each summer, since at least the 1990s, track preparations have been the responsibility of the event organizers. Days or weeks in advance, the track preparers identify an area best suited for their track layouts, surveyors are brought in to survey the timing trap distances. A day before racing begins, the markers are added. Originally, the straightaway was marked with a black line down its center. This was eventually changed to lines down either side, as the line wore out too quickly. As the costs for painting the lines has gone up, organizations have switched to flags, the last event to use black lines was Speed Week, August 2009. The number of tracks and the sections for each track are set according to what is most beneficial for each event. Large public meets such as Speed Week run as many as four tracks with several timed miles, usually starting with the second mile and running to the fifth mile. Smaller meets that typically only run world record attempts will utilize a single track, with one timed mile, additional marks and cones indicate the end of the track and the position of timing equipment. The annual Speed Week was cancelled in both 2014 and 2015, as were many land-speed racing events, due to deteriorating track conditions, heavy rains caused a layer of mud from surrounding mountains to flow onto the flats, covering approximately 6 mi of the track. Although another section of the flats would normally be used, nearby mining operations had reduced the size of the alternative track. The depth of the salt crust at Bonneville has also been decreasing, measured at as much at 3 ft in the 1940s and 50s, it has been reduced to just 0.17 ft in 2015. Though recent studies have made, the causes of this deterioration are not clear. Some strategies were devised to revert the decreasing salt surface, such as pumping back salt, in late August, the BUB Motorcycle Speed Trials are held
9.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
10.
Northern Basin and Range ecoregion
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The Northern Basin and Range ecoregion is a Level III ecoregion designated by the United States Environmental Protection Agency in the U. S. states of Oregon, Idaho, Nevada, Utah, and California. It contains dissected lava plains, rolling hills, alluvial fans, valleys, 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, the western part of the region is internally drained, its eastern stream network drains to the Snake River system. The valleys support sagebrush steppe or saltbush vegetation, mollisol soils are common, in contrast to the aridisols of the Central Basin. Juniper-dominated woodland occurs on rugged, stony uplands, the mountain ranges are covered in mountain sagebrush, Idaho fescue, Douglas-fir, subalpine forests, or aspen. Today, most of the region is used for livestock grazing, dryland and irrigated cropland are found in some areas, but in general the soils are less suitable for agriculture than those in the Columbia Plateau and the Snake River Plain ecoregions. Most public lands in the region are managed by the Bureau of Land Management, the Northern Basin and Range ecoregion has been subdivided into fourteen Level IV ecoregions, as described below. Level IV mapping is not yet complete in California, and the information below includes only the sections in Oregon, Idaho, Nevada, and Utah. The Dissected High Lava Plateau ecoregion is a broad to gently rolling basalt plateau cut by deep, sheer-walled canyons, with perennial, Elevation varies from 4,000 to 7,300 feet. The region is less wooded, lower, and more arid than neighboring subregions in the Northern Basin and it differs from sagebrush-dominated regions in the Central Basin and Range in having higher precipitation and colder winters. Juniper-pinyon woodlands grow on rocky and gravelly uplands, understory species are denser and biological soil crusts tend to be more extensive and in better condition than at similar elevations in the Central Basin and Range. Cheatgrass has replaced depleted bunchgrasses in overgrazed areas and it is primarily used for rangeland and wildlife habitat. Contiguous areas in California have not been mapped yet, the Semiarid Hills and Low Mountains ecoregion is higher and more rugged than the sagebrush plains and basins of neighboring regions. It is composed of unglaciated mountain slopes, hills, and alluvial fans at an elevation of 4,600 to 9,000 feet, scattered juniper woodlands grow on shallow and rocky soils. These hills represent the limit for both pinyon and Utah juniper, western juniper replaces them to the west and north. Groves of aspen grow on alluvial fans and along stream networks, with lodgepole pine. Geyer willow and Booth willow are also present in riparian areas, the region includes streams that have been designated for protection as critical or high priority habitat for Yellowstone cutthroat trout and other fish. Water quality has been lightly to moderately degraded by human activities, such as gold mining and livestock grazing
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