The Silver Island Range, also called the Silver Island Mountains, is a

mountain range A mountain range or hill range is a series of mountains or hills arranged in a line and connected by high ground. A mountain system or mountain belt is a group of mountain ranges with similarity in form, structure, and alignment that have arise ...

Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

, situated the northwest corner of

Tooele County Tooele County ( ) is a county in the U.S. state of Utah. As of the 2010 United States Census, the population was 58,218. Its county seat and largest city is Tooele. The county was created in 1850 and organized the following year. Tooele County ...

and the southwest corner of

Box Elder County Box Elder County is a county at the northwestern corner of Utah, United States. As of 2018, the estimated population is 54,950. Its county seat and largest city is Brigham City. The county was named for the box elder trees that abound in the co ...

, about northeast of

Wendover Wendover is a market town and civil parish at the foot of the Chiltern Hills in Buckinghamshire, England. It is situated at the point where the main road across the Chilterns between London and Aylesbury intersects with the once important road a ...

. The Silver Island Range lies at the west perimeter of the

Great Salt Lake Desert The Great Salt Lake Desert (colloquially referred to as the West Desert) is a large dry lake in northern Utah, United States, between the Great Salt Lake and the Nevada border. It is a subregion of the larger Great Basin Desert, and noted for w ...

; the southeast flank of the range is on the northwest border of the

Bonneville Salt Flats The Bonneville Salt Flats are a densely packed salt pan in Tooele County in northwestern Utah. A remnant of the Pleistocene Lake Bonneville, it is the largest of many salt flats west of the Great Salt Lake. It is public land managed by the Bur ...

Geography

The Silver Island Range is a rough triangular area which extends into Utah from the Utah - Nevada border, with the Pilot Valley Playa to the west and the

to the east. The wilderness area includes with sloping stream terraces,

foothills Foothills or piedmont are geographically defined as gradual increases in elevation at the base of a mountain range, higher hill range or an upland area. They are a transition zone between plains and low relief hills and the adjacent topograp ...

canyon A canyon (from ; archaic British English spelling: ''cañon''), or gorge, is a deep cleft between escarpments or cliffs resulting from weathering and the erosion, erosive activity of a river over geologic time scales. Rivers have a natural tenden ...

s, and steep mountains.

Elevation The elevation of a geographic location is its height above or below a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational surface (see Geodetic datum § Vert ...

starts at at the base of the range, to more than at the

summits A summit is a point on a surface that is higher in elevation than all points immediately adjacent to it. The topographic terms acme, apex, peak (mountain peak), and zenith are synonymous. The term (mountain top) is generally used only for a ...

. The four tallest peaks in the range are Graham Peak, at , Campbell Peak ,

Jenkins Peak Jenkins Peak is a mountain summit located in Tooele County, Utah, United States. Description Jenkins Peak is the third-highest summit in the Silver Island Mountains which are a subset of the Great Basin Ranges. It is set on land controlled by ...

, and Cobb Peak, at .''Silver Island Mountains''
/ref> Other peaks include Tetzlaff Peak, Rishel Peak, and Volcano Peak. With no

perennial stream A perennial stream is a stream that has continuous flow of surface water throughout the year in at least parts of its catchment during seasons of normal rainfall, Water Supply Paper 494. as opposed to intermittent river, one whose flow is interm ...

vegetation Vegetation is an assemblage of plant species and the ground cover they provide. It is a general term, without specific reference to particular taxa, life forms, structure, spatial extent, or any other specific botanical or geographic character ...

on the rocky slopes is sparse, consisting of

juniper Junipers are coniferous trees and shrubs in the genus ''Juniperus'' () of the cypress family Cupressaceae. Depending on the taxonomy, between 50 and 67 species of junipers are widely distributed throughout the Northern Hemisphere, from the Arcti ...

sagebrush Sagebrush is the common name of several woody and herbaceous species of plants in the genus ''Artemisia''. The best known sagebrush is the shrub ''Artemisia tridentata''. Sagebrushes are native to the North American west. Following is an alph ...

ricegrass ''Oryzopsis'' is a genus of Chinese and North American plants in the grass family. Species from this genus are commonly called ricegrass.ephedra Ephedra may refer to: * Ephedra (medicine), a medicinal preparation from the plant ''Ephedra sinica'' * ''Ephedra'' (plant), genus of gymnosperm shrubs See also * Ephedrine Ephedrine is a central nervous system (CNS) stimulant that is of ...

along with other desert shrubs and

grass Poaceae () or Gramineae () is a large and nearly ubiquitous family of monocotyledonous flowering plants commonly known as grasses. It includes the cereal grasses, bamboos and the grasses of natural grassland and species cultivated in lawns an ...

es.Silver Island Mountains, BLM
/ref>

Geology

Bedrock in the range includes faulted and folded

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...

bearing

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...

s. The slopes of the range have been terraced by shoreline

erosion Erosion is the action of surface processes (such as water flow or wind) that removes soil, rock, or dissolved material from one location on the Earth's crust, and then transports it to another location where it is deposited. Erosion is distin ...

and deposition from

Lake Bonneville Lake Bonneville was the largest Late Pleistocene paleolake in the Great Basin of western North America. It was a pluvial lake that formed in response to an increase in precipitation and a decrease in evaporation as a result of cooler temperature ...

History

Historically, several

cave A cave or cavern is a natural void in the ground, specifically a space large enough for a human to enter. Caves often form by the weathering of rock and often extend deep underground. The word ''cave'' can refer to smaller openings such as sea ...

s in the Silver Island Range served as habitation for Native Americans. The range also played a role in the more recent mining history of the region, and stood as both a barrier and

landmark A landmark is a recognizable natural or artificial feature used for navigation, a feature that stands out from its near environment and is often visible from long distances. In modern use, the term can also be applied to smaller structures or f ...

to pioneers who crossed the inhospitable Salt Lake Desert. Donner Canyon in the northeast section of the range bears the name of the Donner-Reed party, who passed north of the area on the

Hastings Cutoff The Hastings Cutoff was an alternative route for westward emigrants to travel to California, as proposed by Lansford Hastings in ''The Emigrant's Guide to Oregon and California''. The ill-fated Donner Party infamously took the route in 1846. Des ...

.Silver Island Mountain National Back Country Byway: Map
/ref>

Modern uses

The Silver Island Range is used for

all-terrain vehicle An all-terrain vehicle (ATV), also known as a light utility vehicle (LUV), a quad bike, or simply a quad, as defined by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI); is a vehicle that travels on low-pressure tires, with a seat that is stra ...

driving,

camping Camping is an outdoor activity involving overnight stays away from home, either without shelter or using basic shelter such as a tent, or a recreational vehicle. Typically, participants leave developed areas to spend time outdoors in more nat ...

caving Caving – also known as spelunking in the United States and Canada and potholing in the United Kingdom and Ireland – is the recreational pastime of exploring wild cave systems (as distinguished from show caves). In contrast, speleology i ...

hiking Hiking is a long, vigorous walk, usually on trails or footpaths in the countryside. Walking for pleasure developed in Europe during the eighteenth century.AMATO, JOSEPH A. "Mind over Foot: Romantic Walking and Rambling." In ''On Foot: A Histor ...

hunting Hunting is the human activity, human practice of seeking, pursuing, capturing, or killing wildlife or feral animals. The most common reasons for humans to hunt are to harvest food (i.e. meat) and useful animal products (fur/hide (skin), hide, ...

mining Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef, or placer deposit. The exploitation of these deposits for raw material is based on the economic via ...

, and

rockhounding Amateur geology or rock collecting (also referred to as rockhounding in the United States and Canada) is the non-professional study and hobby of collecting rocks and minerals or fossil specimens from the natural environment.Sinkankas, John. Minera ...

References

External links

{{commons category, Silver Island Mountains
Silver Island Mountain National Back Country Byway
Great Salt Lake Desert Mountain ranges of the Great Basin Mountain ranges of Box Elder County, Utah Mountain ranges of Tooele County, Utah Mountain ranges of Utah