Lake Tahoe

Lake Tahoe is the 10th Deepest Lake in the World!
The Highest Lake in the United States!

Lake Tahoe Basin is between the Carson's Range and the Sierra Nevada Mountains. These mountains show where the normal fault occurred arguably 2-4 million years ago.

The lake was formed by the downward movement of the ground along the fault known as grabens. The upward shift of the ground formed the ridges or mountains around the lake that are called horsts. One can find fault lines across the northern and western parts of the lake floor.

There is mostly shale, fine grained sediment, like mud and clay found in the area of the lake but in the north end there is siltstone from silt and sand.

This intrusive rock in the picture to the left of felsic material or the lighter patches is seen next to the lizards.

The surrounding mountains provide runoffs from the snow melting into the lake during the seasons. Over the years, the runoffs have brought down sediment rocks that add to the basin. Runoffs can be apart of something larger called triangular facets. Triangular facets are true indicators of a normal fault along a mountain range.The large lake has many running into it but Lake Tahoe is only drained by the Truckee river.

On the Sierra Nevada's there are batholiths from an andesitic volcano. Batholiths are created by an abundance of large chamber's called plutons formed in this case by erosion. Exposed granite, the lighter felsic igneous rock can indicate batholiths. Also, on the mountain sides there has been discoveries of prebatholth or metamorphic rocks.