In the nearby town of Wendover, there was a large military base (now no longer in use) with hundreds of bombers including the infamous Enola Gay. government for ballistic testing of atomic (inert) bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The area is also known for having been secretly used in the past by the U.S. This record was broken again, but not here it was broken in the Black Rock Desert, Nevada. Since 1935, world speed records on 2 wheels have been set and then continuously broken until Gary Gabelich reached the frightening speed of 630 mph in 1970. Another feature that is particularly striking is the effect created by the pressure ridges, slabs shaped like hexagons that are created in some parts of the ground (these will also sound familiar to those who have visited Badwater Basin).īut there are other reasons that bring visitors to Bonneville Salt Flats, especially racing enthusiasts. In the area west of the present-day Great Salt Lake, on the other hand, the drained basin of the lake, whose sparkling white color is caused by the high concentration of salt (it seems that most of the salt used in American households comes from here), extends for a length of about 12 miles and a width of between 3 and 5 miles. As a result of climate change, about 14,500 years ago, the lake began to dry up, leaving some smaller lakes with high salt concentrations in their place, the most famous of which is the Great Salt Lake, located west of Salt Lake City. This large prehistoric lake once covered much of the eastern flank of the Great Basin, a region that included large portions of Nevada, Utah and Oregon, and crossed into California.

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