SPATIOTEMPORAL ANALYSES OF ENVIRONMENTAL CONDITIONS AND SURFACE PROCESSES AT THE BONNEVILLE SALT FLATS

The Bonneville Salt Flats (BSF) is a playa environment in the Great Salt Lake Desert of northwestern Utah. The BSF is a large salt pan (~104 km2) containing the evaporated remnants of the Pleistocene Lake Bonneville. The area is considered an area of critical environmental concern by the BLM and is important economically as a natural resource for potash mining and has an extensive history of recreational use with the Bonneville Speedway. Despite its significance there is little known about the dynamic ephemeral surface processes influencing the halite crust, which the racing community depends upon. The lack of understanding about the natural dynamics of the salt flat environment has been illustrated by ongoing debates held by various special interest groups and stakeholders surrounding the anthropogenic influences on salt crust thickness. Through analyses of MesoWest meteorological data and multispectral satellite data, from 1997 to 2014, this study provides a qualitative and quantitative analysis of macro scale factors influencing the BSF. The meteorological data includes monthly averages of wind, temperature, and precipitation for the BSF vicinity. The remote sensed data consists of Landsat TM and OLI/TIRS scenes obtained through the USGS. The remote sensed data was preprocessed to at surface reflectance, then examined and classified to evaluate changes in spatial extent of water, halite, and other sedimentary saline facies. In situ field-based spectral data was obtained to verify class difference and correlate to changes in mineralogy. Annual scenes and there relevant statistics were then compared to assess how the area of the BSF have changed over time. Preliminary results reveal a complex landscape, with a general increase in area of the halite crust. We hypothesize that changes in the BSF are related to the combined impacts of weather patterns and anthropogenic activity.