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 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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   A view of West Lake in Hangzhou, China
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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 -

Landsat 7 image of Karikkoselkä.

Karikkoselkä is a lake formed in an impact crater in Petäjävesi, Finland. Karikkoselkä is located approximately 30 km east from the centre of Keurusselkä, a much older and larger impact crater. Most lakes in the region are elongated in northwest–southeast direction due to glaciation, but Karikkoselkä is strikingly round.

Many shatter cones, rock formations that form under the extreme pressures of impact, have been found around the lake. Further evidence comes from aeromagnetic maps, which show a clear magnetic anomaly in the impact crater area. In addition, samples collected from deep drillings into the lake bottom confirm the impact origin of the structure.

The crater is the smallest identified in Finland, 1.4 km diameter and 150 m deep. Due to sediments the lake has a maximum depth of 26m which is unusually deep for a lake in the region. Karikkoselkä is estimated to be between 230 Ma and 450 Ma (million years old), most likely near 240 Ma (Triassic or earlier). Some sources give an unreasonably young age of 1.88 Ma, which is likely a misquotation – the discovery paper mentions that the bedrock in the region (known as the Central Finland Granite Complex) formed about 1.88 Ga (thousand million years ago), in the late Paleoproterozoic era. (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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Do you have a question about lakes that you can't find the answer to? Consider asking it at the Wikipedia reference desk.

General images -

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

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  Lake Teletskoye, Siberia (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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  Lake Michigan during a storm near the Ludington Lighthouse (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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  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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  Five Flower Lake in Jiuzhaigou, Sichuan (from Lake)
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  Lura Lakes are the glacial lakes of the Lurë Mountains, Albania (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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  Satellite image of subglacial Lake Vostok in Antarctica. Image credit: NASA (from Subglacial 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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  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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  The crater lake of Mount Rinjani, Indonesia (from 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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  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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  Lake Eyre's shape and depth as a gradient map (from Lake)
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  Soda Lakes in Nevada, USA (from Volcanogenic 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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  Lac Gentau in the Ossau Valley of the Pyrenees, France (from Lake)
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  Badwater Basin dry lake, 15 February 2007. Landsat 5 satellite photo (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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  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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  These kettle lakes in Alaska were formed by a retreating glacier. (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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  Crater Lake in Oregon, USA (from Volcanogenic lake)
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  Lake Mapourika, New Zealand (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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  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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  Ice melting on Lake Balaton in Hungary (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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  Garibaldi Lake in British Columbia, Canada, is impounded by lava flows comprising The Barrier (from Volcanogenic 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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WikiProjects

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

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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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