Great Basin

The Great Basin is an arid region of interior drainage in the western United States, spanning most of Nevada and parts of neighboring states. Its rivers and streams generally end in lakes or playas rather than reaching the sea.

Basin and Range Province: A vast western North American region of alternating mountain ranges and sediment-filled basins shaped by crustal extension. The Great Basin occupies a large part of this broader landscape of parallel ranges and valleys.
Pleistocene lakes: Large lakes that occupied parts of western North America during cooler, wetter periods of the Pleistocene. Their shorelines record wetter climates that once transformed Great Basin valleys.
Walker Lake: A terminal saline lake in western Nevada that has shrunk as water has been diverted from its inflows. Its decline illustrates conflicts between irrigation use and the survival of a Great Basin lake.
Colorado River Basin: The drainage basin of the Colorado River, which flows to the Gulf of California through the southwestern United States and Mexico. Unlike most Great Basin watersheds, this basin carries river water toward the sea.
Endorheic basin: A drainage basin whose waters flow inward and do not reach an ocean. This drainage pattern defines the Great Basin’s hydrologic boundary.
Lake Bonneville: A large Pleistocene lake that covered much of western Utah before shrinking into remnants including Great Salt Lake. Its former shoreline shows how climate change reshaped an enclosed Great Basin watershed.
Truckee River: A river flowing from Lake Tahoe through Nevada to Pyramid Lake, with major water demands along its course. Its management connects Sierra Nevada water supplies with a terminal lake in the Great Basin.
Columbia River Basin: The drainage basin of the Columbia River, which flows westward to the Pacific Ocean from western North America. Its ocean-bound drainage contrasts with the Great Basin’s internally terminating waters.
Rain shadow: A dry region on the sheltered side of a mountain range, where mountains reduce incoming precipitation. The Sierra Nevada blocks much Pacific moisture from reaching the Great Basin.
Paleoclimatology: The study of past climates using evidence preserved in sediments, ice, fossils, and other natural archives. Lake beds and shorelines help reconstruct climatic shifts across the Great Basin.

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