....everything erodes....
Everything that erodes is also redeposited some place else .
I've also never read anyplace about the salt depth being anywhere near that thickness but like the others have said Lake Bonneville was that deep before it overflowed into what is now the Snake and cut a huge gorge out and emptied out a lot of that depth in a very short period of time.
In Salt Lake City as I look eastward, I see on the western side of the Wasatch Mountains an ancient wave-eroded bench 800 feet higher than the city. That widespread bench was formed by erosion at 5,050 feet above sea level. It marks the old shoreline ("bathtub ring") of ancient Lake Bonneville, the largest Ice Age lake to form within the Great Basin. This old lake was comparable in volume to Lake Michigan, and occupied almost 20,000 square miles in eastern Nevada, western Utah, and southern Idaho. The surface of Lake Bonneville was about one third of the area of Utah. This massive lake attained a maximum depth of 1,000 feet and was 800 feet deep over Salt Lake City. It
http://www.icr.org/article/red-rock-pass-spillway-bonneville-flood/
Sumner
A link to a creationist website... well, I can discredit anything you have to say from here on out.
Well I'm not a 'creationist' but the info about the Bonneville Lake does match up with most the geomorphology I've read about the lake. As for the discrediting believe me my feelings won't be hurt in this instance,
Sumner
I just can't trust anything creationists have to say. but you are't one so I retract that statement. The track record of them flat out lying is just puts them beyond trust. They may not be in this case, but i'm not willing to put any time into anything they have to say trying to work it out.
As for what happened to the salt when it erroded. It's salt. It can be dissolved readily in water once it's broken up into small peices. I would suspect it's washed away. At this point though, there is too much man made interference to test any conditions currently existing to know one way or another. But, salt flats SLOWLY shrinking is the norm. This is seen in africa's great salt flats. However, to think that we aren't increasing the rate would be totally foolish.
Part of me wonders, which is cheaper, trying to keep the salt there, or letting it go. Say ALL of the salt disapears in 20 years, there is NOTHING left. Could we then pave a 10 mile long by 1/4 mile wide road and race on that? What would that cost? Would it be cheaper than trying to save the salt? Then again I guess the BLM would never allow such a construction project... but then again, once all the salt is gone does the BLM has any point being involved? With nothing left to conserve, why would they?
I'm hoping we just find a new spot to run all together. Maybe get the millitary to come up off of one it's many dry lake beds. The salt flats just see unsavable to me. It's the old profits vs. people thing again and profits always always always win. The only way this will ever get turned in to the benefit of the racers is if the racers went out and bought up all the mining rights. Become the mine operators and then you get to say what gets done with the "tailings."
I would be nice if one single mine has ever been a good steward of the land, but it's never happened in all of man kinds history. They get the profits, and then we get to spend tax money cleaning up the mess in every single case. It's going to be no different here. Can;t wait for my tax dollars to help start the next mine somewhere, so it can make a mess, and then spend more tax dollars cleaning up that mess after it's gone "bankrupt"