Blog: An ephemeral lake reveals itself in Death Valley
Visiting Death Valley today, it is hard to imagine nearly all of it once underwater. It contains the lowest point in the U.S. It is known for record-setting heat and aridity. But the land there — and many of the basins that dot the Mojave and the Great Basin — were once filled with water. During the last Ice Age, in the late Pleistocene, a lake filled much of what is now called Death Valley to a depth of about 600 feet. That’s only a bit shallower than the modern-day Lake Huron (with a max. depth of about 750 feet). It is believed that the body of water, later described as Lake Manly, stretched 90 miles long and 11 miles wide. And it was hardly alone. Further east, in the heart of the Great Basin, Lake Lahontan and Lake Bonneville, at their peak, stretched hundreds of miles.