The Silver Island Range, also called the Silver Island Mountains, is a
mountain range
A mountain range or hill range is a series of mountains or hills arranged in a line and connected by high ground. A mountain system or mountain belt is a group of mountain ranges with similarity in form, structure, and alignment that have aris ...
in
Utah
Utah is a landlocked state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is one of the Four Corners states, sharing a border with Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico. It also borders Wyoming to the northea ...
,
United States
The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
, situated the northwest corner of
Tooele County
Tooele County ( ) is a county in the U.S. state of Utah. As of the 2020 United States census, the population was 72,698. Its county seat and largest city is Tooele. The county was created in 1850 and organized the following year. Tooele Coun ...
and the southwest corner of
Box Elder County
Box Elder County is a county at the northwestern corner of Utah, United States. At the 2020 United States census, the population was 57,666, up from the 2010 figure of 49,975. Its county seat and largest city is Brigham City. The county was n ...
, about northeast of
Wendover
Wendover is a town and civil parish at the foot of the Chiltern Hills in Buckinghamshire, England. It is situated at the point where the main road across the Chilterns between London and Aylesbury intersects with the once important road along t ...
.
The Silver Island Range lies at the west perimeter of the
Great Salt Lake Desert
The Great Salt Lake Desert (colloquially referred to as the West Desert) is a large dry lake in northern Utah, United States, between the Great Salt Lake
The Great Salt Lake is the largest saltwater lake in the Western Hemisphere and the ei ...
; the southeast flank of the range is on the northwest border of the
Bonneville Salt Flats
The Bonneville Salt Flats are a densely packed salt pan in Tooele County in northwestern Utah, United States. A remnant of the Pleistocene Lake Bonneville, it is the largest of many salt flats west of the Great Salt Lake. It is public land ma ...
.
Geography
The Silver Island Range is a rough triangular area which extends into Utah from the Utah - Nevada border, with the Pilot Valley Playa to the west and the
Great Salt Lake Desert
The Great Salt Lake Desert (colloquially referred to as the West Desert) is a large dry lake in northern Utah, United States, between the Great Salt Lake
The Great Salt Lake is the largest saltwater lake in the Western Hemisphere and the ei ...
to the east. The wilderness area includes with sloping
stream terrace
Fluvial terraces are elongated terraces that flank the sides of floodplains and fluvial valleys all over the world. They consist of a relatively level strip of land, called a "tread", separated from either an adjacent floodplain, other fluvial t ...
s,
foothills
Foothills or piedmont are geography, geographically defined as gradual increases in elevation at the base of a mountain range, higher hill range or an highland, upland area. They are a transition zone between plains and low terrain, relief hill ...
,
canyon
A canyon (; archaic British English spelling: ''cañon''), gorge or chasm, is a deep cleft between escarpments or cliffs resulting from weathering and the erosive activity of a river over geologic time scales. Rivers have a natural tendency t ...
s, and steep mountains.
Elevation
The elevation of a geographic location (geography), ''location'' is its height above or below a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational equipotenti ...
starts at at the base of the range, to more than at the
summits
A summit is a point on a surface that is higher in elevation than all points immediately adjacent to it. The topographic terms acme, apex, peak (mountain peak), and zenith are synonymous.
The term (mountain top) is generally used only for ...
. The four tallest peaks in the range are Graham Peak, at , Campbell Peak ,
Jenkins Peak
Jenkins Peak is a mountain summit located in Tooele County, Utah, United States.
Description
Jenkins Peak is the third-highest summit in the Silver Island Mountains which are a subset of the Great Basin Ranges. It is set on land controlled ...
Tetzlaff Peak
Tetzlaff Peak is a mountain summit located in Tooele County, Utah, Tooele County, Utah, United States.
Description
Tetzlaff Peak is situated in the Silver Island Range, Silver Island Mountains which are a subset of the Basin and Range Province ...
,
Rishel Peak
Rishel Peak is a mountain summit located in Tooele County, Utah, United States.
Description
Rishel Peak is situated in the Silver Island Mountains which are a subset of the Great Basin Ranges, and it is set on land managed by the Bureau of ...
perennial stream
A stream is a continuous body of surface water flowing within the bed and banks of a channel. Depending on its location or certain characteristics, a stream may be referred to by a variety of local or regional names. Long, large stream ...
s,
vegetation
Vegetation is an assemblage of plants and the ground cover they provide. It is a general term, without specific reference to particular Taxon, taxa, life forms, structure, Spatial ecology, spatial extent, or any other specific Botany, botanic ...
on the rocky slopes is sparse, consisting of
juniper
Junipers are coniferous trees and shrubs in the genus ''Juniperus'' ( ) of the cypress family Cupressaceae. Depending on the taxonomy, between 50 and 67 species of junipers are widely distributed throughout the Northern Hemisphere as far south ...
,
sagebrush
Sagebrush is the common name of several woody and herbaceous species of plants in the genus ''Artemisia (plant), Artemisia''. The best-known sagebrush is the shrub ''Artemisia tridentata''. Sagebrush is native to the western half of North Amer ...
,
ricegrass
''Oryzopsis'' is a genus of Chinese and North American plants in the grass family. Species from this genus are commonly called ricegrass.ephedra along with other desert shrubs and
grass
Poaceae ( ), also called Gramineae ( ), is a large and nearly ubiquitous family (biology), family of monocotyledonous flowering plants commonly known as grasses. It includes the cereal grasses, bamboos, the grasses of natural grassland and spe ...
fossil
A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserve ...
bearing
limestone
Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...
s. The slopes of the range have been terraced by shoreline
erosion
Erosion is the action of surface processes (such as Surface runoff, water flow or wind) that removes soil, Rock (geology), rock, or dissolved material from one location on the Earth's crust#Crust, Earth's crust and then sediment transport, tran ...
and deposition from
Lake Bonneville
Lake Bonneville was the largest Late Pleistocene paleolake in the Great Basin of western North America. It was a pluvial lake that formed in response to an increase in precipitation and a decrease in evaporation as a result of cooler temperatur ...
.
History
Historically, several
cave
Caves or caverns are natural voids under the Earth's Planetary surface, surface. Caves often form by the weathering of rock and often extend deep underground. Exogene caves are smaller openings that extend a relatively short distance undergrou ...
s in the Silver Island Range served as habitation for
Native Americans
Native Americans or Native American usually refers to Native Americans in the United States.
Related terms and peoples include:
Ethnic groups
* Indigenous peoples of the Americas, the pre-Columbian peoples of North, South, and Central America ...
. The range also played a role in the more recent mining history of the region, and stood as both a barrier and
landmark
A landmark is a recognizable natural or artificial feature used for navigation, a feature that stands out from its near environment and is often visible from long distances.
In modern-day use, the term can also be applied to smaller structures ...
to pioneers who crossed the inhospitable Salt Lake Desert. Donner Canyon in the northeast section of the range bears the name of the Donner-Reed party, who passed north of the area on the
Hastings Cutoff
The Hastings Cutoff was an alternative route for westward emigrants to travel to California, as proposed by Lansford Hastings in ''The Emigrant's Guide to Oregon and California''. The ill-fated Donner Party infamously took the route in 1846.
D ...
all-terrain vehicle
An all-terrain vehicle (ATV), also known as a light utility vehicle (LUV), a quad bike or quad (if it has four wheels), as defined by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), is a vehicle that travels on low-pressure tires, has a seat ...
driving,
camping
Camping is a form of outdoor recreation or outdoor education involving overnight stays with a basic temporary shelter such as a tent. Camping can also include a recreational vehicle, sheltered cabins, a permanent tent, a shelter such as a Bivy bag ...
,
caving
Caving, also known as spelunking (United States and Canada) and potholing (United Kingdom and Ireland), is the recreational pastime of exploring wild cave systems (as distinguished from show caves). In contrast, speleology is the scientific ...
,
hiking
A hike is a long, vigorous walk, usually on trails or footpaths in the countryside. Walking for pleasure developed in Europe during the eighteenth century. Long hikes as part of a religious pilgrimage have existed for a much longer time.
"Hi ...
,
hunting
Hunting is the Human activity, human practice of seeking, pursuing, capturing, and killing wildlife or feral animals. The most common reasons for humans to hunt are to obtain the animal's body for meat and useful animal products (fur/hide (sk ...
,
mining
Mining is the Resource extraction, extraction of valuable geological materials and minerals from the surface of the Earth. Mining is required to obtain most materials that cannot be grown through agriculture, agricultural processes, or feasib ...
, and
rockhounding
Amateur geology or rock collecting (also referred to as rockhounding in the United States and Canada) is the non-professional study and hobby of collecting rocks and minerals or fossil specimens from the natural environment.Sinkankas, John. Miner ...