Portal:Lakes
The Lakes Portal
A portal dedicated to Lakes
Selected panorama
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Thunder Lake in Northern Alberta -
A view of Goëngarijpsterpoelen, one of the Frisian Lakes -
A view of West Lake in Hangzhou, China -
A view of Lake Teletskoye, the largest lake in the Altai Mountains and the Altai Republic, Russia -
A view of the six lowest (and largest) lakes of the Seven Rila Lakes
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Introduction
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 -
Mono Lake (/ˈmoʊnoʊ/ MOH-noh) is a saline soda lake in Mono County, California, formed at least 760,000 years ago as a terminal lake in an endorheic basin. The lack of an outlet causes high levels of salts to accumulate in the lake which make its water alkaline.
The desert lake has an unusually productive ecosystem based on brine shrimp, which thrive in its waters, and provides critical habitat for two million annual migratory birds that feed on the shrimp and alkali flies (Ephydra hians). Historically, the native Kutzadika'a people ate the alkali flies' pupae, which live in the shallow waters around the edge of the lake.
When the city of Los Angeles diverted water from the freshwater streams flowing into the lake, it lowered the lake level, which imperiled the migratory birds. The Mono Lake Committee formed in response and won a legal battle that forced Los Angeles to partially replenish the lake level. (Full article...)
General topics
| Lake zones |
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| Lake stratification |
| Lake types |
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Need assistance?
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General images -
The following are images from various Lake-related articles on Wikipedia.
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Lake Trasimeno, Italy, has volcanic origin (from Lake) -
Lava lake at Mount Nyiragongo in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (from Volcanogenic lake) -
Lusatian Lake District, Germany, Europe's largest artificial lake district. (from Lake) -
Soda Lakes in Nevada, USA (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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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) -
Sunset over Lake Michigan at Nordhouse Dunes in Manistee National Forest, Michigan, United States (from Lake) -
Russian scientist Peter Kropotkin first proposed the idea of fresh water under Antarctic ice. (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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Ice melting on Lake Balaton in Hungary (from Lake) -
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) -
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) -
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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Cross sectional diagram of limnological lake zones (left) and algal community types (right) (from Lake) -
Crater Lake in Oregon, USA (from Volcanogenic lake) -
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) -
Titan's north polar hydrocarbon seas and lakes, as seen in a false-color Cassini synthetic aperture radar mosaic (from Lake) -
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) -
Lake Mapourika, New Zealand (from Lake)
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More articles
| Natural lakes |
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Lakes on the Altiplano | |
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| Present-day lakes and salt pans | |
| Lake expansions of Lake Titicaca | |
| Ancient lakes | |
| Other paleolakes and lake expansions in the region | |
| Rivers | |
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| Lakes | |
| Reservoirs | |
| Five Great Lakes |  | |
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| Notable freshwater lakes |
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| Notable salt lakes | ||
| National Parks | ||
| Protected wetlands | ||
| Nature Reserves | ||
| Major urban lakes | ||
| Reservoirs | ||
| Eastern Georgia |
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| Western Georgia |
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Great Lakes of North America | |||||||||||||||||
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| Low-altitude lakes | |
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| Mid-altitude lakes | |
| High-altitude lakes | |
| Reservoirs | |
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"The Largest Lake in the Philippines" | |||||||
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| Lakes/ponds | |
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Lakes in Mongolia | |
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| Lakes |
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Lakes of New Mexico | |
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Lakes and other natural bodies of water in New South Wales, Australia | |
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| Coastal lagoons and lakes | |
| Freshwater | |
| Glacial | |
| Saline | |
| Africa | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Lakes of Switzerland | ||
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| Major lakes |
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| Lists | ||
| Coastal lagoons and lakes | |
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| Freshwater | |
| Glacial | |
| Salt | |
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| Natural lakes |
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| Artificial lakes | |
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| Federal district | |
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| Neighboring lakes and dams | ||
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Associated Wikimedia
The following Wikimedia Foundation sister projects provide more on this subject:
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Commons
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Collection of quotations -
Wikisource
Free-content library -
Wikiversity
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Wiktionary
Dictionary and thesaurus
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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