Date of Award:

5-1959

Document Type:

Thesis

Degree Name:

Master of Science (MS)

Department:

Geosciences

Department name when degree awarded

Geology

Committee Chair(s)

J. Stewart Williams

Committee

J. Stewart Williams

Abstract

Bear Lake Valley is located in southeastern Idaho and northeastern Utah. It is an elongate valley extending from the vicinity of Laketown, Utah, in the Randolph quadrangle, to the vicinity of Georgetown, Idaho, in the Montpelier quadrangle. The southern part of the valley is occupied by Bear Lake. The essentially straight-sided valley is bounded on the northeast by the Preuss Range, on the southeast by the Bear Lake Plateau, and on the west by the Bear River Range.

Bear River, rising in the Uinta Mountains to the south, and skirting the Wyoming Basin as it swings from Wyoming into Utah and back into Wyoming again, enters the valley between the Bear Lake Plateau and the Preuss Range and then flows northward along the valley to its northern end. The river flows northward from Bear Lake Valley to near Soda Springs, Idaho, where it turns southward, flowing through Gentile and Cache Valleys, and empties into the Great Salt Lake.

Although well within the Middle Rocky Mountain province as defined by Fenneman (1917), Bear Lake Valley appears in part at least to be bounded by high-angle faults of the Basin and Range type, and thus represents an eastward extension of "Basin and Range" structure into the Middle Rocky Mountain province. It is probably similar in basic structure to the "back valleys" of the Wasatch Mountains such as Heber, Morgan, Ogden, and Mantua Valleys (Gilbert, 1928, p. 55-62).

This study is concerned with that portion of Bear Lake Valley which lies in Utah. The Utah portion is about one-third of the whole valley and encompases an area of about 180 square miles.

Checksum

e7f2d11456ea818e8ac35ac8d9897417

Included in

Geology Commons

Share

COinS