Created in partnership with Nan Seymour of the River Writing Collective, our Great Salt Lake Conversation in a Box encourages Utahns to reflect on the importance of the lake in our lives, and exercise their creative minds. You can request the box and in addition, feel free to use the resources below.
Resources
Organizations, Websites, and Resources on the Great Salt Lake
Take Action!
Many Thanks To
- Jim Davis at the bookstore located in the Department of Natural Resources (1594 West North Temple, SLC UT) for his help and knowledge.
- Mitzi Davis for her artwork used to create the GSL stickers in your box.
- Stefanie at Saltgrass Printmakers for her beautiful artwork on the included postcards.
Companion Information for Witnessing the Great Salt Lake
Sounds of the Great Salt Lake
recorded by Nan Seymour
About Oolitic Sand
Oolitic sand is an unusual sediment that is found in and around the Great Salt Lake. Instead of forming from grains of mineral fragments washed down from higher ground, this sand formed within the Great Salt Lake. It is composed of tiny, light brown, rounded oolites. An oolite has a shell of concentric layers of calcium carbonate that precipitated around a nucleus or central core. The nucleus is usually a tiny brine shrimp fecal pellet or a mineral fragment. Oolites form in shallow, wave-agitated water, rolling along the lake bottom and gradually accumulating more and more layers. In addition to the Great Salt Lake, oolites also form in Baffin Bay (Texas), the eastern Mediterranean Sea, the Persian Gulf, and the waters surrounding the Bahamas. Although oolitic sand is collected for its uniqueness, it has also been used to dry flowers and as flux in mining operations.
Poem: once we had everything
by Nan Seymour
we had an island full of bison
we had a sky full of flight
we had a sea full of northern shovelers
in fall we had an ocean full of grebes—
divers with ruby eyes and dark lashes
we had everything
meadowlarks tuned the morning
coyotes crooned the night
we had beaches full of sand
and each grain
a spherical world
not ground, but grown
complete concentric rings
calcified
around the feces of fairy shrimp
we had circles full of people
bearing stories,
some not easy to tell
and yet the tellers told them anyway–