The Quinn River, once known as the Queen River, is an intermittent river, approximately 110 miles (180 km) long, in the desert of northwestern Nevada in the United States. It drains an enclosed basin inside the larger Great Basin.

It rises in northeastern Humboldt County, on the west side of the Santa Rosa Range, just south of the Oregon state line. Its course flows southwest, through the main Nevada lands of the Fort McDermitt Paiute and Shoshone Tribes and then south and southwest, receiving the Kings River flowing south from Kings River Valley. The Quinn River evaporates in a sink at the Black Rock Desert, south of the Black Rock Range.

Catchment

The Quinn River is the largest river in the region, starting in the Santa Rosa Range and ending in the Quinn River Sink on the playa south of the Black Rock Range. The watershed covers 11,600 sq mi (30,000 km) including the Upper and Lower Quinn River, Smoke Creek Desert, Massacre Lake, and Thousand Creek/Virgin Valley watersheds of northwestern Nevada as well as small parts across the borders of California and Oregon.

Quinn River Sink

The Quinn River Sink is the mouth of the Quinn River and is a geographic sink of around 3 square miles (7.8 km), where the Quinn River discharges and evaporates about 2.75 miles (4.43 km) south-southwest of Black Rock Hot Springs.

See also

• List of rivers of the Great Basin