Portal:Lakes
The Lakes Portal
A portal dedicated to Lakes
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Introduction
A lake is often a naturally occurring, relatively large and fixed body of water on or near the Earth's surface. It is localized in a basin or interconnected basins surrounded by dry land. Lakes lie completely on land and are separate from the ocean, although they may be connected with the ocean by outflowing rivers. Lakes, like other bodies of water, are part of the water cycle, the processes by which water moves around the Earth. Most lakes are fresh water and account for almost all the world's surface freshwater, but some are salt lakes with salinities even higher than that of seawater. Lakes vary significantly in surface area and volume of water, but in total cover approximately 2.5 X 106 km2 (less than 2%) of the Earth's surface.
Lakes are typically larger and deeper than ponds, which are also water-filled basins on land, although there are no official definitions or scientific criteria distinguishing the two. Lakes are also distinct from lagoons, which are generally shallow tidal pools dammed by sandbars or other material at coastal regions of oceans or large lakes. Most lakes are fed by springs, precipitation, and surface runoff, and both fed and drained by creeks, and rivers, but some lakes are endorheic without any outflow, while volcanic lakes are filled by precipitation and runoff and do not have any inflow streams.
Natural lakes are generally found in mountainous areas (i.e. alpine lakes), dormant volcanic craters, rift zones and areas with ongoing glaciation. Other lakes are found in depressed landforms or along the courses of mature rivers, where a river channel has widened over a basin formed by eroded floodplains and wetlands. Some lakes are found in caverns underground. Some parts of the world have many lakes formed by the chaotic drainage patterns left over from the last ice age. All lakes are temporary over long periods of time, as they will slowly fill in with sediments or spill out of the basin containing them. (Full article...)
Selected article -
A lake-burst (Old Irish: tomaidm, Irish: tomhaidhm) is a phenomenon referred to in Irish mythology, in which a previously non-existent lake comes into being, often when a grave is being dug. Part of the lake-burst stories may originate in sudden hydrographic changes around limestone-based inland plains or turloughs. Other so-called lake-bursts refer to marine estuaries, bays and inlets, such as Galway Bay, Strangford Lough, Dundrum Bay, Belfast Lough, Waterford Harbour and the mouth of the River Erne. Some of these coastal districts were renowned for the drowned prehistoric forests, which gave rise to several flood-myths.
Lake-bursts play a significant role in Irish water symbolism. The people of Ireland and Celtic Britain generally believed that vast bodies of water — seas or inland lakes — harbored beings from the underworld (Tír fó Thuinn), whether as humans or monstrous creatures, in their depths. Bodies of water not only served as physical boundaries, but also as spiritual thresholds, separating life from death, this world from the otherworld.
Medieval bards had a special genre of lake-burst poems called tomamond. More or less elaborate 11th- or 12th-century narratives have survived around Galway Bay, Lough Neagh and Lough Ree, which seem to be related to similar (though less ancient) stories in Wales (Cantre'r Gwaelod, Llys Helig, Llyn Tegid, Llynclys), Cornwall (Lyonesse), Brittany (Ys) and Normandy (Forêt de Scissy). A late 16th-century Frisian legend, probably borrowed from Irish examples, refers to the origins of the Zuiderzee. Other Irish texts refer to the eruption of the River Boyne and other rivers. The poems of the lake-burst of Lough Erne and the eruption of Brí (where the legendary character Midir lived) have been lost. In Wales the flood myth is elaborated in the story of Dwyfan and Dwyfach, who saved people and animals from the great deluge caused by the monster Avanc living in Llyn Llion (possibly Llyn Tegid). Its Irish counterpart as told in the Lebor Gabála Érenn only links up with the Biblical story of Noah's flood. (Full article...)
General topics
| Lake zones |
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| Lake stratification |
| Lake types |
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General images -
Garibaldi Lake in British Columbia, Canada, is impounded by lava flows comprising The Barrier (from Volcanogenic lake)
A schematic cross-section of the subglacial pool beneath Taylor Glacier and its outflow, Blood Falls. Image credit: Zina Deretsky / US National Science Foundation (from Subglacial lake)
Crater Lake in Oregon, USA (from Volcanogenic lake)
A view of the southern polar plain of Mars. The area where a subglacial lake has been detected is highlighted. Image credit: USGS Astrogeology Science Center, Arizona State University (from Subglacial lake)
Titan's north polar hydrocarbon seas and lakes, as seen in a false-color Cassini synthetic aperture radar mosaic (from Lake)
Cross sectional diagram of limnological lake zones (left) and algal community types (right) (from Lake)
Ice melting on Lake Balaton in Hungary (from Lake)
The first view of the sediment at the bottom of subglacial Lake Whillans, captured by the WISSARD expedition. Image credit: NASA/JPL, California Institute of Technology (from Subglacial lake)
Ephemeral 'Lake Badwater', a lake only noted after heavy winter and spring rainfall, Badwater Basin, Death Valley National Park, 9 February 2005. Landsat 5 satellite photo (from Lake)
Lake Mapourika, New Zealand (from Lake)
Round Tangle Lake, one of the Tangle Lakes, 2,864 feet (873 m) above sea level in interior Alaska (from Lake)
Lake Trasimeno, Italy, has volcanic origin (from Lake)
View of a bay in Lake Toba, on the island of Sumatra, Indonesia, which is the largest volcanic lake in the world (from Volcanogenic lake)
Lava lake at Mount Nyiragongo in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (from Volcanogenic lake)
Soda Lakes in Nevada, USA (from Volcanogenic lake)
An artist's depiction of the subglacial lakes and rivers beneath the Antarctic Ice Sheet. Image credit: Zina Deretsky / US National Science Foundation (from Subglacial lake)
The Nowitna River in Alaska. Two oxbow lakes – a short one at the bottom of the picture and a longer, more curved one at the middle-right. (from Lake)
Lusatian Lake District, Germany, Europe's largest artificial lake district. (from Lake)
Russian scientist Peter Kropotkin first proposed the idea of fresh water under Antarctic ice. (from Subglacial lake)
An illustration of ice core drilling above subglacial Lake Vostok. These drilling efforts collected re-frozen lake water that has been analyzed to understand the lake's chemistry. Image credit: Nicolle Rager-Fuller / US National Science Foundation (from Subglacial lake)
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Lakes on the Altiplano | |
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| Notable freshwater lakes |
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| Mid-altitude lakes | |
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"The Largest Lake in the Philippines" | |||||||
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Lakes in Mongolia | |
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Lakes of New Mexico | |
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Lakes and other natural bodies of water in New South Wales, Australia | |
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Lakes of Switzerland | ||
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Associated Wikimedia
The following Wikimedia Foundation sister projects provide more on this subject:
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External media
- World Lake Database. International Lake Environment Committee Foundation. – provides a searchable database
- Global Lakes and Wetlands Database. World Wide Fund for Nature. – available for free download
