Appendix 6
Remarkable Geology and Geography: Northern Utah and Southern Idaho
The tall rugged Wasatch Mountain Range is a segment of the Rocky Mountains. It borders the eastern side of the of the 4,300 ft. high valley of the Great Salt Lake. The mountains rise to over 11,000 feet, nearly 7,000 feet higher than the elevation of the valley floor.
Geologically speaking, what happened in the region 14,500 years ago had a more dramatic effect on the geology of the Great Salt Lake Valley, southern Idaho, the Snake River and the Columbia Basin than the beautiful Wasatch Mountain Range ever did.
Prior to that time, a lake the size of Lake Michigan, covered northern Utah, southern Idaho, and western Nevada. The lake was over 300 feet deep.
Geologist, G.K. Gilbert (1843-1918), named the ancient lake, Bonneville, in honor of Benjamin Louis Eulalie de Bonneville, a French-born, U.S. Army officer who obtained leave from the Army (1830) to ostensibly explore the West. He organized 110 fur-trappers and hunters near present-day Green River, Wyoming and set-out to establish a fur trade. Washington Irving, romanticized Bonneville’s three years of exploration in his 1837 book The Adventures of Captain Bonneville.
The shore-lines of ancient Lake Bonneville are clearly visible by the benches located on the east slope of the Wasatch Mountains bordering the Great Salt Lake Valley.
The geologically-significant Red Rock Pass, near present-day Downey, Idaho was once a natural dam of foothills bordering the lake’s northern end. About 14,500 years ago, there was likely an unusual snowpack in the mountains causing the lake to overfill and spillover at Red rock Pass.
The breach, once started, soon washed out Lake Bonneville’s natural dam; causing a one-time flood of immense proportions. Geologists estimate that when the Lake’s flood waters reached Portneuf Narrows, a few miles east of present-day Pocatello, Idaho and 45 miles northwest of Red Rock Pass, the discharge reached approximately 15,000 cubic feet per second; a depth of up to 400 feet, and a top speed of 60 miles per hour – lasting for about eight weeks.
The breach caused the surface level of Lake Bonneville to drop precipitously, not stopping until it reached a new shoreline near present-day Provo, Utah – that up to that time was under water. Today’s Great Salt Lake and the freshwater Utah Lake are remnants of the prehistoric freshwater Lake Bonneville.
On the north end of Lake Bonneville, the floodwaters followed the natural northwest drainage of the Snake River for about 500 miles from Pocatello to the Columbia River near Kennewick, Washington.
The flood cut river gorges hundreds of feet deep, creating canyons on the Snake River drainage. Today, several hydroelectric and irrigation storage dams fill the gorges. Shoshone Falls, near Twin Falls—sometimes called the Niagara Falls of the West—and Hells Canyon, just west of Riggins in west-central Idaho are distinctive remnants of the flood.
At nearly 8,000 feet, the Snake River’s Hells Canyon Gorge (divides Idaho and Oregon) is North America’s deepest river gorge, deeper than even the famous Grand Canyon in Arizona.
The flood was so massive, it tumbled house-size boulders for hundreds of miles; leaving massive deposits of sandbanks, soils, boulders, rocks and gravels. The tall smooth boulders of Massacre Rocks State Park near American Falls, Idaho were deposits from the great flood.
About 150-miles downstream in the Hagerman Valley are “melon gravel,” tumbled-smooth boulders ranging in size of watermelons to a compact car.
Commentary – The man, Portneuf, was a French-Canadian trapper who was part of Peter Skeen Ogden’s beaver-trapping expedition up the Snake River and its tributaries in 1825 and 1826. Portneuf was killed while trapping in 1825. Ogden named the river where his comrade died - in his honor. Today, a river, valley and mountain range bear the Portneuf name.
The Snake River begins in Yellowstone National Park and is a natural drainage for rivers and streams in Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, Oregon and Washington; before emptying into the Columbia River near Kennewick, Washington; which in turn, empties into the Pacific Ocean.
In total, the Snake River is (about) 1,056 miles long and drops approximately 9,500 feet from its headwaters in Wyoming (9,840-foot elevation) to its confluence with the Columbia River (340-foot elevation).
The first white settlers into the Great Salt Lake Valley were members of The Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Church); led by God’s Prophet, Brigham Young. Forced from their modern Nauvoo, Illinois homes by armed mobs; many of the refugees crossed the frozen mile-wide Mississippi River in January; before traveling 1,250 miles west; arriving in the Great Salt Lake Valley on July 24, 1847. Before they arrived, the only people in the region were nomadic American Indians from different tribes.
When the first Church members arrived in the Great Salt Lake Valley, the United States was at war with Mexico over territory. The war ended with the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo; signed on February 2, 1848. At war’s end, the Mexican Government ceded its land claims between the 42nd Parallel and the present US-Mexico border to the United States. Thus, when Church members arrived in the Salt Lake Valley, they were technically on Mexican soil. However, after the war, the Salt Lake Valley was federal land; soon to be designated, Utah Territory.
During the war, the US Army recruited over 500 men from the Church’s membership at Florence, Nebraska (Mormon Battalion) to serve in the war with Mexico. The Battalion marched 2,000 miles across the Southwestern desert to San Diego and mustered out.
Evidenced by Church members receiving their personal Patriarchal Blessings, Church members learn, by revelation, they are descendants of the ancient prophet Jacob, aka Israel. The linage of almost all Church members are through Israel’s son Joseph and grandson Ephraim. (see Appendix 2, The world into which Jesus Christ was born; Commentary – The 12 Tribes of Israel).
The prophet Brigham Young saw the destination of their settlement, the Great Salt Lake Valley, in vision. When he first looked over the valley from the eastern mountains, he said, “This is the place.” When his wagon reached the valley floor, Brigham Young walked the area, finally stopping, striking the ground with his walking stick and saying, “Here we will build a Temple to our God;” the location of the Salt Lake City Temple - The words, “Holiness to the Lord, The House of the Lord;” is written on every temple built by the Church.
The mountain valley Brigham Young saw in vision was prophesied by multiple ancient prophets. Isaiah said, “And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains and, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it. And many people shall go and say; Come ye and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways; and we will walk in his paths; for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord out of Jerusalem. (Isaiah 2: 2-3).
“But in the last days, it shall come to pass that the mountain of the House of the Lord shall be established in the top of the mountains ….” (Micah 4: 1-2)
Jacob (Israel), when giving blessings to each of his 12 sons, said, “Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a well (ocean) whose branches runover the wall (across the ocean to the American Continents); “The blessings of thy father (Jacob) have prevailed above the blessings of my (Jacob) progenitors unto the upmost bounds of the everlasting hills; they shall be on the head of Joseph and the crown of the head of him (Joseph) that was separate from his brethren.” (Genesis 49: 26 and Deuteronomy 33: 13-15).
The land of the everlasting hills is the American Continents where a series of different mountain ranges, including the Rocky Mountains, touch and extend from the Artic to Antarctica and under the sea.