Lake Tecopa
Fed by the Amargosa River and some neighbouring washes, it eventually culminated to a surface area of 235 square kilometres (91 sq mi) around 186,000 years ago and left sediments.
The cities of Barstow, California and Las Vegas, Nevada lie close to the lake basin.
[3][4] The lake itself had a roughly triangular shape with a northern, a southwestern and a southeastern corner,[1] and at its highstand it covered about 235 square kilometres (91 sq mi).
[3] Its southern margin is not clear, given that the height of the sill to the China Ranch basin is undetermined.
[9] At the time of the Bishop Tuff eruption, Lake Tecopa was about 100 metres (330 ft) deep.
[18][5] The catchment of the Amargosa River above Tecopa, California is presently about 8,000 square kilometres (3,100 sq mi).
[17] The former lake basin is surrounded by various hills and mountain ranges, formed by rocks of Neoproterozoic to Tertiary age.
[26] Presently, the area of Lake Tecopa is a hot, dry desert with most precipitation occurring during summer.
[27][2] Under present-day climates, evaporation is too high and precipitation too low to allow the formation of lakes in the area.
[20] After the lake was breached, these deposits were deeply eroded and exposed,[5][16] showing thicknesses exceeding 70 metres (230 ft).
[22] The sediments of Lake Tecopa have been heavily researched,[28] e.g. whether similar deposits on Mars would be remotely detectable.
[3] A number of fossils were discovered in the sediments, including chara, diatoms, ostracods, snails and vertebrates.
[43] The highest shoreline occurs at about 525–550 metres (1,722–1,804 ft) elevation (subsequently tectonically deformed) about 186,000 years before present; it appears to coincide with the Eetza highstand of Lake Lahontan and oxygen isotope stages 8, 7 and 6.
[45] At some point after 579,000 years ago, a 8 square kilometres (3.1 sq mi) large slump occurred at the southwestern area of the lake, possibly triggered by an earthquake.
[5] A 25 kilometres (16 mi) long gorge was formed by the breaching event,[50] which was triggered either by a river capture-like process or by overflow.
