Portal:Lakes

The Lakes Portal
A portal dedicated to Lakes

Selected panorama

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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 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 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 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 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 three primary zones of a lake

A lake ecosystem or lacustrine ecosystem includes biotic (living) plants, animals and micro-organisms, as well as abiotic (non-living) physical and chemical interactions. Lake ecosystems are a prime example of lentic ecosystems (lentic refers to stationary or relatively still freshwater, from the Latin lentus, which means "sluggish"), which include ponds, lakes and wetlands, and much of this article applies to lentic ecosystems in general. Lentic ecosystems can be compared with lotic ecosystems, which involve flowing terrestrial waters such as rivers and streams. Together, these two ecosystems are examples of freshwater ecosystems.

Lentic systems are diverse, ranging from a small, temporary rainwater pool a few inches deep to Lake Baikal, which has a maximum depth of 1642 m. The general distinction between pools/ponds and lakes is vague, but Brown states that ponds and pools have their entire bottom surfaces exposed to light, while lakes do not. In addition, some lakes become seasonally stratified. Ponds and pools have two regions: the pelagic open water zone, and the benthic zone, which comprises the bottom and shore regions. Since lakes have deep bottom regions not exposed to light, these systems have an additional zone, the profundal. These three areas can have very different abiotic conditions and, hence, host species that are specifically adapted to live there.

Two important subclasses of lakes are ponds, which typically are small lakes that intergrade with wetlands, and water reservoirs. Over long periods of time, lakes, or bays within them, may gradually become enriched by nutrients and slowly fill in with organic sediments, a process called succession. When humans use the drainage basin, the volumes of sediment entering the lake can accelerate this process. The addition of sediments and nutrients to a lake is known as eutrophication. (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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  Crater Lake in Oregon, USA (from Volcanogenic lake)
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  Lava lake at Mount Nyiragongo in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (from Volcanogenic lake)
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  Lake Eyre's shape and depth as a gradient map (from Lake)
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  Badwater Basin dry lake, 15 February 2007. Landsat 5 satellite photo (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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  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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  Lake Mapourika, New Zealand (from Lake)
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  Soda Lakes in Nevada, USA (from Volcanogenic lake)
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  Lake Teletskoye, Siberia (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 Caspian Sea is either the world's largest lake or a full-fledged inland sea (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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  Lake Kaniere is a glacial lake in the West Coast region of New Zealand. (from Lake)
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  Lac Gentau in the Ossau Valley of the Pyrenees, France (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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  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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  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 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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  Five Flower Lake in Jiuzhaigou, Sichuan (from Lake)
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  Lusatian Lake District, Germany, Europe's largest artificial lake district. (from Lake)
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  The crater lake of Mount Rinjani, Indonesia (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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  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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  Satellite image of subglacial Lake Vostok in Antarctica. Image credit: NASA (from Subglacial lake)
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  Ice melting on Lake Balaton in Hungary (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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  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 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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  Lura Lakes are the glacial lakes of the Lurë Mountains, Albania (from Lake)
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  These kettle lakes in Alaska were formed by a retreating glacier. (from Lake)
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  Lake Michigan during a storm near the Ludington Lighthouse (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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WikiProjects

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

• WikiProject Lakes
• WikiProject Rivers
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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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