Ancient Lake Lahontan at Yerington, Nevada
Northern Nevada was once a high elevation, island archipelago.
In the centuries following Noah’s flood an ice age ensued. That ice age lasted hundreds of years. When the ice age began to recede, weather patterns changed and hundreds of lakes developed in the western United States. Paleo wind studies show that long ago, Nevada regularly received moist air directly from the Gulf of Mexico. This moist air deposited a colossal amount of rain and snow which exceeded the evaporation rate, thus creating ponds and lakes. The lakes created by this weather pattern left behind sandy shorelines that we can still go see and touch today. This is an image of one of the largest lakes based upon geological studies of the shoreline evidence.
Surprisingly, the arid desert areas where Nevadan’s live and work today were once covered with water. A huge donut-shaped lake dominated northern Nevada. The lake is called Ancient Lake Lahontan. In this rendering I have restored the water level in relation to the surrounding terrain back to the highest level it had attained. You are seeing how Nevada likely looked thousands of years ago, in photographic quality!
Ancient Lake Lahontan at Yerington, Nevada
The camera is located at the northern tip of the Walker Lake Basin. This image is looking west across the Mason Valley, the city of Yerington is near the waters edge at left. The mountains just beyond the water are the Pinenut Mountains. Just over the Pinenut Range are the cities of Gardnerville, NV and Minden, NV.
This section of Ancient Lake Lahontan was fed by the Walker River. The source of water for the Walker River is a large section of the Sierra Mountain Range north of Yosemite. In the early development of Ancient Lake Lahontan, the Walker River is believed to have followed a much different course than it does today. The Walker River once flowed through Mason Valley and then continued through the Adrian Valley (along Hwy Alt 95) and joined with the Carson River at present-day Fort Churchill.
As Lake Lahontan’s water level rose in elevation, it eventually spilled over and flooded Mason Valley. The southern shoreline for the lake in Mason Valley was Luhr Hill just south of Yerington, NV. As Lahontan’s water level receded, the course of the Walker River was re-directed making a sharp turn to the east going around the Wassuk Range and into the present-day Walker Lake basin.
In 2016 I received a grant from the Nevada Arts Council. The grant was given for the purpose of creating a series of images of of Ancient Lake Lahontan, of which this image is part.
Terrains in this scene have been replicated from Digital Elevation Maps made available by NASA Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) flown aboard space shuttle Endeavour on February 11-22, 2000.
Digital Elevation Maps were made available by NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey.These data are distributed by the Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center (LP DAAC), located at USGS/EROS, Sioux Falls, SD
