THE GREAT BASIN

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Location
• Basic facts
• Important facts
• Animals
• How it was formed

WHERE IT IS

• The Great Basin is located in the north west of Nevada.

Facts

BASIC FACTS

• There is minimal rainfall and dust storms are common in the Great Basin, which covers most of Nevada, half of Utah, and parts of California, Oregon, Wyoming, and Idaho.
• Death Valley is located in the Great Basin at 282 feet below sea level.
• In the day it gets over 90 °F and in the night it gets near 40 °F.
• Major cities in the Great Basin include Reno, Boise and Salt Lake City.

INTERESTING FACTS

• The Sierra Nevada and Cascade Mountains create a rain shadow over the Great Basin.
• The Great Basin got its name by the streams and rivers having no exit to the sea, instead, water is collected in salt lakes, marshes and mudflats and then evaporates.
• The Great Basin has the largest U. S. desert named Great Basin Desert.

ANIMALS

Water Shrew

Yellow-bellied Marmot

Beaver

Sagebrush Vole

Porcupine

Pygmy Rabbit

Bighorn Sheep

HOW IT WAS FORMED

• The Great Basin was formed 550 million years ago during the Paleozoic age. Thick layers of sediment formed bedrock under the Ocean.
• Then during the Tertiary Period, heat from the earth's mantle formed a dome.
• The volcanic fields caused the dome to break apart (rifting), forming mountains and valleys.
• The Ice Age caused further formations of ranges and basins by moving the earth's plates.

I wouldn't want to live there because of extreme heat and little water.

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