Utah Valley
The Utah Valley is a region in Utah County in the U.S. state of Utah to the Utah Lake. The valley with 5,200 km ² at an altitude 1378-1579 m lies to the west of the Wasatch Mountains and is one of the outermost valleys of the Basin and Range geologic province, immediately below the Rocky Mountains. In the south and in the west the valley is bounded by clumps belonging to the Horst- and -Graben structure of the Basin and Range region in the north tower above the Traverse Mountains (also referred to Traverse Range ) from the Wasatch Range to the west and borders as the Utah Valley from north adjoining the Salt Lake Valley.
In Utah Valley Utah Lake is located. It drains through the Jordan River gorge cut by the Jordan Narrows between the Traverse Range and the western Horst in the Salt Lake Valley and the Great Salt Lake. This has no outlet, making the Utah Valley a part of the Great Basin. The valley was like the entire Basin and Range Province, only about six million years ago by stretching breaks in the earth's crust that creates the parallel Horst and Graben structures. At the end of the last Ice Age, the Utah Valley was part of the prehistoric Lake Bonneville, which peaked about 16,000 years ago and reached to Provo after a catastrophic flood before about 14,000 years ago. All of today's lakes in the eastern Great Basin, including the Utah Lake are remnants of this lake.
History
Originally, the Utah Valley home range of the eponymous Ute Indians. The Dominguez -Escalante expedition of two Franciscan friars brought 1775/76, the first white men in the valley. Trappers and traders of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company held in the 1820s as first white longer in the region. When settlers arrived in 1850 Mormon pioneers who opened up on behalf of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints ( Mormons), the agricultural valley. Because of the water supply, they settled almost exclusively on the eastern shore of the lake. Near the shore they lay mainly in orchards, the higher parts were partly used partly without irrigation for cultivation. In the north of the valley there were large-scale cultivation of sugar beet.
The Provo Canyon Provo Rivers was an appropriate place for the production of hydroelectric power, so that in 1898 a hydroelectric plant to supply mines in Mercur in the mountains west of the lake was built. It has further been extended below the Provo River because of rising consumption in 1904 by a second, much larger power plant.
Industry, it was not until the Second World War. After the entry of the United States 1942/43, was built on the lake shore north of Orem, a steel plant, which took the coal and ore deposits of the region. It was in the 1980s and 2001 temporarily closed completely, its assets are sold to China in 2004 and removed.
Utah Valley today
The eastern shore of Utah Lake is now a continuous agglomeration of settlements. The largest is Provo, named after the trapper Etienne Provost. Other notable towns are Orem, Pleasant Grove and American Fork. Together they form the Provo - Orem metropolitan area (Provo - Orem metropolitan area ). In Utah Valley are with Brigham Young University in Provo and Utah Valley University in Orem, the two largest universities in Utah. The Eyring Research Institute, founded in Provo in 1972 was important for the development of the region for high- tech location. In collaboration with the universities, the Institute promoted the development of communication and production technology. From him Novell and WordPerfect Corporation emerged.
Agriculture takes place only in the south of the valley. The orchards and fields in the corridor between Provo and Lehi were converted into suburbs.