CHAPTER 1
T.
THE GEOLOGY AND GEOGRAPHY OF TOOELE COUNTY
ooele County, the second largest county in the state of Utah, measures 6,919 square miles and is located between the ridgeline of the Oquirrh Mountains on the east and the Utah-Nevada state line on the west. 1 There are several different spellings, pronunciations, and derivations of the word Tooele, including the name of a Goshute Indian chief, a black bear, and a reference to the reeds, or tules, found in the swampy areas of the county. None have found universal acceptance. 2 The county's northern border is at forty-one degrees north latitude; its southern b o u n d a r y is marked at about thirty-nine degrees fifty-three minutes north latitude. The county's landscape and natural environment is as diverse as any in the state, containing a portion of the Great Salt Lake, the largest dead sea in the western hemisphere, m u c h of the Great Salt Lake Desert, and the scenic Stansbury, Deep Creek, and Oquirrh mountains, which provide spectacular alpine beauty and respite from the searing summit heat as well as water to counter the aridity of the county's valleys. Several of the m o u n t a i n ranges in the county yield vast a m o u n t of mineral
