Illustrated talk for Environmental interpretation

Lake Bonneville shows us of a Dramatic change in the climate and environment.

Target Audience: individuals unaware of climate change and probability of change.
Information gathered and proof of the environmental change hopefully will educate
the target audience.




Goal: to inform my audience on climate change and how this area and the history of
Lake Bonneville play a important role in the studies of climate change.






Objectives:
1. 60% of the audience will think about climate change when they see the
existing shorelines from lake Bonneville
2. 30% do there own research on the subject.
3. 80% after the presentation tell others about what the learned.













1. Lake Bonneville was one of the largest lakes in the USA and still existed around
16,000 years ago. It covered up the salt lake valley where so many of us have homes
and live today. (Relate)

2. It was a totally different place so many years ago and had all kinds of different
plants and animals that are not here today Animals such as bears, camels, deer,
mammoths, horses and musk oxen roamed its shores. (Provoke, separate for kids)




3. You can see the lines running on the mountains foothills that show us the
shorelines from years ago and are a visible record of the Lakes depth at certain
times. It seems like it would have been millions of years ago but was still here a
mere 16,000 years ago. (Provoke)

4. One of the first to study and try to figure out the history of the lake was Edward
Griffin Beckwith, A Army Lieutenant who traveled and surveyed the state in 1853 to
map routes for the railroad. He thought the lake was a portion of the ocean that
came this far inland. Good guess but not correct. That would have meant the ocean
was extremely deeper than it is today. This made more sense to him then Utah being
such a humid area with so much water. (Art of science, history, architecture)

5. Grove Karl Gilbert, a scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey did more research and
in the 1870s and found this to not be true he studied the shoreline and found where the
lake had drained. It was in the Snake River Valley in Idaho. They also saw that the lake
had different shorelines and rose and fell over long periods of time until it was drained to
the level it is at today. (Revelation and information, Art of science, history,
architecture)


6. The Lake was surrounded by mountain except for red rocks pass on the north end of
the lake. When the lake rose high enough to begin spilling over and draining into the
Snake River drainage. The overflow cut into the surface and caused a massive flood that
was said to have lasted about one year.






7. The flood was massive and created a huge flood plain around the Snake River. Large
boulders were moved and reminisces of them can be seen today. Some traveled very far
and were turned into smaller rocks that have been called petrified melons by some of the
locals in the area and the name stuck. (Relate)



8. The time period in which it was formed and the way it drained and evaporated
are signs of climate change and how it can affect and change an area.

It had three different stages or distinct shorelines and rose and fell numerous times
until the lake Bonneville flood.


9. Studies have been done for years just on the mystery of the lake but now have
been used to predict the future climate change based on what has happened in the
past with the lake. (Revelation and information)

10. Through geological studies and finding certain amounts of salt and other items
at different times they can understand how much the lake rose and fell over periods
of time. Also through studying tree rings and things like this they can understand
the climate changes that occurred. (Revelation and information)

11. The area was once as wet as Oregon and moisture flowed in on the jet streams to
create the glaciers that melted and fed the giant lake. Then continued heat rising
over time has put this area where it is today and studies done on this lake have told
us it will continue to get dryer and hotter and climate change is real. (Revelation
and information, provoke, as a whole).

12. The tenet of watershed hydrology, called the "Budyko curve" (Revelation and
information) the more that comes at once in large supply help in less evaporation
and more turns into run off. This is how the lake came to be and less of this is how it
went away.


http://www.hcn.org/issues/43.18/utahs-ancient-lake-bonneville-holds-clues-to-the-wests-
changing-climate/article_view?b_start:int=4
http://eaps-www.mit.edu/paoc/about/spotlights/climates-dusty-clues
http://www.astronexus.com/node/56
http://geology.isu.edu/Digital_Geology_Idaho/Module14/history/Bonneville.htm
http://geology.utah.gov/utahgeo/gsl/flash/lb_flash.htm
http://hugefloods.com/Bonneville.html
http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Glossary/Glaciers/IceSheets/description_lake_bonneville.html
http://geology.utah.gov/online_html/pi/pi-39/pi39pg15.htm
http://www.geology.byu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Volume-15-Part-4-1968.pdf