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

Introduction

Lac Gentau in the Ossau Valley of the Pyrenees, France

A lake is a naturally occurring, relatively large and fixed body of water on 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, such as Lake Ontario. Most lakes are freshwater 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.

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 shallow tidal pools dammed by sandbars 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 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 seen from NASA's Aqua satellite in August 2010. From left to right: Lake Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, Ontario

The Great Lakes (French: Grands Lacs), also called the Great Lakes of North America, are a series of large interconnected freshwater lakes in the east-central interior of North America that connect to the Atlantic Ocean via the Saint Lawrence River. The five lakes are Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario, and they are in general on or near the Canada–United States border. Hydrologically, Michigan and Huron are a single body of water joined at the Straits of Mackinac. The Great Lakes Waterway enables modern travel and shipping by water among the lakes.

The Great Lakes are the largest group of freshwater lakes on Earth by total area and the second-largest by total volume; they contain 21% of the world's surface fresh water by volume. The total surface is 94,250 square miles (244,106 km²), and the total volume (measured at the low water datum) is 5,439 cubic miles (22,671 km³), slightly less than the volume of Lake Baikal (5,666 cu mi or 23,615 km³, 22–23% of the world's surface fresh water). Because of their sea-like characteristics, such as rolling waves, sustained winds, strong currents, great depths, and distant horizons, the five Great Lakes have long been called inland seas. Depending on how it is measured, by surface area, either Lake Superior or Lake Michigan–Huron is the second-largest lake in the world and the largest freshwater lake. Lake Michigan is the largest lake that is entirely within one country.

The Great Lakes began to form at the end of the Last Glacial Period around 14,000 years ago, as retreating ice sheets exposed the basins they had carved into the land, which then filled with meltwater. The lakes have been a major source for transportation, migration, trade, and fishing, serving as a habitat to many aquatic species in a region with much biodiversity. The surrounding region is called the Great Lakes region, which includes the Great Lakes Megalopolis. (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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  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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  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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  Lava lake at Mount Nyiragongo in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (from Volcanogenic lake)
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  These kettle lakes in Alaska were formed by a retreating glacier. (from 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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  Lac Gentau in the Ossau Valley of the Pyrenees, France (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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  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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  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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  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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  View of Lake Toba in Sumatra, Indonesia which is the largest volcanic lake in the world (from Volcanogenic lake)
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  Lake Mapourika, New Zealand (from Lake)
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  Crater Lake in Oregon, USA (from Volcanogenic 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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  Lake Kaniere is a glacial lake in the West Coast region of New Zealand. (from Lake)
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  Five Flower Lake in Jiuzhaigou, Sichuan (from Lake)
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  Lake Teletskoye, Siberia (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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  Lake Eyre's shape and depth as a gradient map (from Lake)
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  Lura Lakes are the glacial lakes of the Lurë Mountains, Albania (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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  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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  The Caspian Sea is either the world's largest lake or a full-fledged inland sea (from Lake)
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  Lake Michigan during a storm near the Ludington Lighthouse (from Lake)
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  The crater lake of Mount Rinjani, Indonesia (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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  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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  Ice melting on Lake Balaton in Hungary (from Lake)
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  Soda Lakes in Nevada, USA (from Volcanogenic lake)
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  Badwater Basin dry lake, 15 February 2007. Landsat 5 satellite photo (from Lake)
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  Satellite image of subglacial Lake Vostok in Antarctica. Image credit: NASA (from Subglacial lake)

Related portals

WikiProjects

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

• WikiProject Lakes
• WikiProject Rivers
• WikiProject Oceans
• WikiProject Water

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Lakes

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Reservoirs

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Lake stubs

Wikipedia categories named after lakes

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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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