Origin
The Great Salt Lake is a remnant of a much larger prehistoric lake called Lake Bonneville. At its greatest extent, Lake Bonneville spanned 22,400 square miles (58,000 km2), nearly as large as present-day Lake Michigan, and roughly ten times the area of the Great Salt Lake today. Bonneville reached 923 ft (281 m) at its deepest point, and covered much of present-day Utah and small portions of Idaho and Nevada during the ice ages of the Pleistocene Epoch.
Lake Bonneville existed until about 16,800 years ago, when a large portion of the lake was released through the Red Rock Pass in Idaho. With the warming climate, the remaining lake began to dry, leaving the Great Salt Lake, Utah Lake, Sevier Lake, and Rush Lake behind.
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