Chinese Arch is located along the East Grade Auto Tour route. Chinese Arch probably formed in-part by wave erosion along the shore of ancient Lake Bonneville, a great freshwater lake that extensively flooded the eastern Great Basin region throughout Utah and Nevada. The last high-standing water level in the lake was about 14,000 years ago. The Great Salt Lake is but a tiny remnant of the great lakes that episodically filled the internally drained basin through the Quaternary Period over the last few million years (NPS, 2006, Utah Geological Survey 2010a,b). |