Look west from the entrance station parking lot across mud and salt flats to Antelope Island. This island is the largest in the Great Salt Lake basin and is home to Antelope Island State Park. 

The chain of mountain ranges behind you to the east--the Wasatch Mountains--marks the boundary between the Rocky Mountain Province and the Great Basin. To the west the Great Basin extends to the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California 

The Great Salt Lake has no outlet because it is at the bottom of a basin of interior drainage. The result is a terminal lake. Fresh water entering from the Bear, Jordan, and Weber river drainage systems can only exit by evaporation or by seepage into deep groundwater layers. Current climate conditions of high evaporation and a low input of fresh water from streams results in a saline lake. 

If you look carefully at any topographic map you should be able to pick out the various lakeshore levels or stands of the ancient fresh water Lake Bonneville--which was found here during glacial times. The most important stands are the Provo, Bonneville, Stansbury, and Gilbert stands--see chart below:

Westminster College students are shown here on a field trip in October 1996. Depending on the year and season, the water-level may vary significantly.  A few months before this site was under water.  Read more about the lake's contraction and expansion and changing lake elevations at the USGS Great Salt Lake page.  Note especially the satellite images of lake changes between 1972 and 1987. 

Other saline lakes are found in the Great Basin including California's Mono Lake.  It shares many characteristics with the Great Salt Lake. See also Salton Sea Project - UC Davis and the Center for Inland Waters at San Diego State University.

There are many other famous saline lakes such as The Dead Sea in Jordan/ Israel and the Aral Sea in Central Asia.  Click here to find a list of sites to explore on Saline Lakes. 

More Maps of the Great Salt Lake Region:

• DEM - digital elevation model shaded-relief map of Utah - (large 643k gif) - by the Color Landform Atlas of the US (John's Hopkins University).
• Antelope Island geology by USGS (small gif)
• Satellite image of Utah (large 1.0M gif) - part of the Utah Geography from Space - USU, Utah State University, College of Natural Resources, Geography and Earth Resources, College of Natural Resources.
• General location map of Great Salt Lake sites--from the USGS online web materials.
• Golden Spike Empire  - Utah Travel Council (and other national sites).
• Quaternary Fault and Folds map and other earthquake maps and information (Utah Geological Survey).

About THREE AND A HALF MILES WEST along the causeway pull off along the waters edge where you can access the beach on either side.

• See this ANTELOPE ISLAND MAP which you can purchase from  the UGS (Utah Geological Survey) DNR Bookstore and Map source - State of Utah or the Antelope Island Visitor Center - see other sites here.
  
• Get the Booklet: Geology & Antelope Island State Park, Utah, 1988. Other maps are listed in the Great Salt Lake Map Exercise. UGS (Utah Geological Survey) - Great Salt Lake Resources & Questions along with Publications.
  
• Learn more from Ty Harrison, Professor of Biology, Westminster College of SLC. and the Great Salt Lake Project and other modules such as the Great Salt Lake Playa Foodweb Project. 

• More at: SELECT SOURCES, Northern Utah Wildlife, Utah.com, USFWS and learn about the modern land use conflicts from this document: Antelope Island Draft Access Management Plan - 2004 (PDF)

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