Portal:Lakes

The Lakes Portal
A portal dedicated to Lakes

Selected panorama

– Hover over image and scroll to middle for controls to see more selected panorama images –

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   A view of West Lake in Hangzhou, China
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   Thunder Lake in Northern Alberta
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   A view of Goëngarijpsterpoelen, one of the Frisian Lakes
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   A view of the six lowest (and largest) lakes of the Seven Rila Lakes
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   A view of Isojärvi in Satakunta, Western Finland
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   A view of Lake Teletskoye, the largest lake in the Altai Mountains and the Altai Republic, Russia

Introduction

Lac Gentau in the Ossau Valley of the Pyrenees, France

A lake is an often 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 rivers. Lakes, as with 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.

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, and both fed and drained by creeks and rivers, but some lakes are endorheic without any outflow, while volcanic lakes are filled directly by precipitation runoffs 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 -

The Great Lakes Storm of 1913, historically referred to as the Big Blow, the Freshwater Fury and the White Hurricane, was a blizzard with hurricane-force winds that devastated the Great Lakes Basin in the Midwestern United States and Southwestern Ontario, Canada, between November 7 and 10, 1913. The storm was most powerful on November 9, battering and overturning ships on four of the five Great Lakes, particularly Lake Huron.

The storm was the deadliest and most destructive natural disaster to hit the Great Lakes in recorded history. More than 250 people were killed. Shipping was hard hit; nineteen ships were destroyed, and nineteen others were stranded. About US$1 million of cargo weighing about 68,300 tons—including coal, iron ore and grain—was lost. The storm impacted many cities, including Duluth, Minnesota; Chicago, Illinois; and Cleveland, Ohio, which received 22 in (56 cm) of snow combined with winds up to 79 mph (127 km/h) and was paralyzed for days.

The extratropical cyclone originated when two major storm fronts fueled by the Great Lakes' relatively warm waters—a seasonal process called a "November gale"—converged. It produced wind gusts of 90 mph (140 km/h), waves estimated at over 35 feet (11 m) high and whiteout snowsqualls. Winds exceeding hurricane-force occurred over four of the lakes for extended periods creating very large waves. The large size of the lakes provides wind fetches (the length of water over which a given wind has blown without obstruction) of hundreds of miles, allowing huge waves to form. Rogue waves are known to occur on the Great Lakes, including waves reinforced by reflections from the vertical shores of some of the lakes. (Full article...)

General topics

• List of lakes
  • Lists of lakes
  • List of lakes by area
  • List of lakes by depth
  • List of drying lakes
  • List of international lakes
  • List of ancient lakes
  • List of prehistoric lakes
  • List of largest lakes and seas in the Solar System
• Limnology
• Lake ecosystem
• Lake stratification
• Ancient lake
• Former lake
• Shrunken lake
• Salt lake
• Lava lake
• Reservoir
• Lakes of Titan

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General images -

The following are images from various Lake-related articles on Wikipedia.

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  Sirmione, on the shores of Lake Garda, Italy (from Lake)
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  Garibaldi Lake in British Columbia, Canada, is impounded by lava flows comprising The Barrier (from Volcanogenic lake)
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  Lura Lakes are the glacial lakes of the Lurë Mountains, Albania (from Lake)
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  Soda Lakes in Nevada, USA (from Volcanogenic lake)
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  Lake Kaniere is a glacial lake in the West Coast region of New Zealand. (from Lake)
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  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)
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  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)
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  Lake Mapourika, New Zealand (from Lake)
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  The crater lake of Mount Rinjani, Indonesia (from Lake)
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  Lake Michigan during a storm near the Ludington Lighthouse (from Lake)
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  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)
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  Lake Teletskoye, Siberia (from Lake)
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  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)
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  Titan's north polar hydrocarbon seas and lakes, as seen in a false-color Cassini synthetic aperture radar mosaic (from Lake)
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  Cross sectional diagram of limnological lake zones (left) and algal community types (right) (from Lake)
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  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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  These kettle lakes in Alaska were formed by a retreating glacier. (from Lake)
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  Badwater Basin dry lake, 15 February 2007. Landsat 5 satellite photo (from Lake)
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  Lake Eyre's shape and depth as a gradient map (from Lake)
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  Russian scientist Peter Kropotkin first proposed the idea of fresh water under Antarctic ice. (from Subglacial lake)
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  Five Flower Lake in Jiuzhaigou, Sichuan (from Lake)
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  Ice melting on Lake Balaton in Hungary (from Lake)
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  Lakes can have significant cultural importance. The West Lake of Hangzhou has inspired romantic poets throughout the ages, and has been an important influence on garden designs in China, Japan and Korea. (from Lake)
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  Round Tangle Lake, one of the Tangle Lakes, 2,864 feet (873 m) above sea level in interior Alaska (from Lake)
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  Lusatian Lake District, Germany, Europe's largest artificial lake district. (from Lake)
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  Lac Gentau in the Ossau Valley of the Pyrenees, France (from Lake)
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  Satellite image of subglacial Lake Vostok in Antarctica. Image credit: NASA (from Subglacial lake)
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  The Caspian Sea is either the world's largest lake or a full-fledged inland sea (from Lake)
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  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)
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  Lava lake at Mount Nyiragongo in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (from Volcanogenic lake)
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  Bellagio, on the shores of Lake Como, Italy (from Lake)
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  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)
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  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)
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  Crater Lake in Oregon, USA (from Volcanogenic lake)

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WikiProjects

Tulainyo Lake is a freshwater alpine lake in the eastern Sierra Nevada in the U.S. state of California

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Lakes

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Reservoirs

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Associated Wikimedia

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External media

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

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