Field Assignment Geology 103

Walker Lake NV

By Susan Prather

Walker Lake NV

• Pictures I have chosen are the rock formations surrounding Walker Lake in Nevada, Walker Lake is a Natural lake in the Great Basin in western Nevada. The Lake is fed from the

north by the Walker River and has no natural outlet except absorption and

evaporation. The lakebed is a remnant of prehistoric Lake Lahontan that covered much of northwestern

Nevada during the Ice Age.

The lake itself has dried up many times since the end of the Pleistocene

During the ice ages the jet stream of winds carried moisture off the glaciers and into Nevada. As these glaciers moved northward, less moisture came into the area. The rise of the Sierra Nevada's prevented the flow of moisture coming from the ocean, which stopped the clouds from forming. 

80 million years ago the huge Sierra Nevada granite batholiths pushed its way upward creating the Wassuk Range

You can notice a lot of limestone or calcium carbonate this happens when the rocks come in contact with an alkaline lake.

The granite rocks range from gray to yellow orange

 

The Yellow orange shows the presents of iron oxide.  

you can see white gray tufa and how some of the round rocks have been cemented together

At the top of the mountain there is a present of limestone, which was probably pushed up with the mountain.

Notice the layers of strata and how many years of layering it took to create it.

This Lake was home to major Loon migration but due to the high salt concentration the Tui Chub and other small fish are no longer present in so the migratory Loons no longer stop over. The

Salinity in the Lake caused extinctions and changed migratory patterns.

This valley lies on two faults, the Walker Lane Fault and Pine Nut Fault. With out these two Faults their would be no Walker

Lake or Basin. 

Almost desert like in the appearance, an arid area there’s not a lot of growth