Portal:Lakes

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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 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 Goëngarijpsterpoelen, one of the Frisian Lakes
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   A view of the six lowest (and largest) lakes of the Seven Rila Lakes

Introduction

Lac Gentau in the Ossau Valley of the Pyrenees, France

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 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 -

Satellite image of subglacial Lake Vostok in Antarctica. Image credit: NASA

A subglacial lake is a lake that is found under a glacier, typically beneath an ice cap or ice sheet. Subglacial lakes form at the boundary between ice and the underlying bedrock, where liquid water can exist above the lower melting point of ice under high pressure. Over time, the overlying ice gradually melts at a rate of a few millimeters per year. Meltwater flows from regions of high to low hydraulic pressure under the ice and pools, creating a body of liquid water that can be isolated from the external environment for millions of years.

Since the first discoveries of subglacial lakes under the Antarctic Ice Sheet, more than 400 subglacial lakes have been discovered in Antarctica, beneath the Greenland Ice Sheet, and under Iceland's Vatnajökull ice cap. Subglacial lakes contain a substantial proportion of Earth's liquid freshwater, with the volume of Antarctic subglacial lakes alone estimated to be about 10,000 km³, or about 15% of all liquid freshwater on Earth.

As ecosystems isolated from Earth's atmosphere, subglacial lakes are influenced by interactions between ice, water, sediments, and organisms. They contain active biological communities of extremophilic microbes that are adapted to cold, low-nutrient conditions and facilitate biogeochemical cycles independent of energy inputs from the sun. Subglacial lakes and their inhabitants are of particular interest in the field of astrobiology and the search for extraterrestrial life. (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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  Lake Eyre's shape and depth as a gradient map (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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  Bellagio, on the shores of Lake Como, Italy (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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  The crater lake of Mount Rinjani, Indonesia (from Lake)
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  Crater Lake in Oregon, USA (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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  Badwater Basin dry lake, 15 February 2007. Landsat 5 satellite photo (from Lake)
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  Lake Mapourika, New Zealand (from Lake)
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  Ice melting on Lake Balaton in Hungary (from Lake)
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  Five Flower Lake in Jiuzhaigou, Sichuan (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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  These kettle lakes in Alaska were formed by a retreating glacier. (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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  Soda Lakes in Nevada, USA (from Volcanogenic 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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  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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  Lura Lakes are the glacial lakes of the Lurë Mountains, Albania (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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  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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  Lusatian Lake District, Germany, Europe's largest artificial lake district. (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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  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 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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  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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  Satellite image of subglacial Lake Vostok in Antarctica. Image credit: NASA (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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  Lake Teletskoye, Siberia (from Lake)
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  Sirmione, on the shores of Lake Garda, Italy (from Lake)
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  Lac Gentau in the Ossau Valley of the Pyrenees, France (from Lake)
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  Lake Michigan during a storm near the Ludington Lighthouse (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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WikiProjects

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

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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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