Portal:Lakes

The Lakes Portal
A portal dedicated to Lakes

Selected panorama

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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 West Lake in Hangzhou, China
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   Thunder Lake in Northern Alberta
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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 Isojärvi in Satakunta, Western Finland

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. 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 Aral Sea in 1989 (left) and 2014 (right)

The Aral Sea (/ˈærəl/) was an endorheic lake (that is, without an outlet) lying between Kazakhstan to its north and Uzbekistan to its south, which began shrinking in the 1960s and largely dried up by the 2010s. It was in the Aktobe and Kyzylorda regions of Kazakhstan and the Karakalpakstan autonomous region of Uzbekistan. The name roughly translates from Mongolic and Turkic languages to "Sea of Islands", a reference to the large number of islands (over 1,100) that once dotted its waters. The Aral Sea drainage basin encompasses Uzbekistan and parts of Afghanistan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan.

Formerly the fourth-largest lake in the world with an area of 68,000 km² (26,300 sq mi), the Aral Sea began shrinking in the 1960s after the rivers that fed it were diverted by Soviet irrigation projects. By 2007, it had declined to 10% of its original size, splitting into four lakes: the North Aral Sea, the eastern and western basins of the once far larger South Aral Sea, and the smaller intermediate Barsakelmes Lake. By 2009, the southeastern lake had disappeared and the southwestern lake had retreated to a thin strip at the western edge of the former southern sea. In subsequent years occasional water flows have led to the southeastern lake sometimes being replenished to a small degree. Satellite images by NASA in August 2014 revealed that for the first time in modern history the eastern basin of the Aral Sea had completely dried up. The eastern basin is now called the Aralkum Desert.

In a Kazakhstani effort to save and replenish the North Aral Sea, the Dike Kokaral dam was completed in 2005. By 2008, the water level had risen 12 m (39 ft) above that of 2003, to 42 m (138 ft). As of 2013, salinity dropped, and fish were again present in sufficient numbers for some fishing to be viable. (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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  View of Lake Toba in Sumatra, Indonesia which is the largest volcanic lake in the world (from Volcanogenic lake)
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  Badwater Basin dry lake, 15 February 2007. Landsat 5 satellite photo (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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  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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  Russian scientist Peter Kropotkin first proposed the idea of fresh water under Antarctic ice. (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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  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 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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  Lusatian Lake District, Germany, Europe's largest artificial lake district. (from 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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  Lake Teletskoye, Siberia (from Lake)
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  Lac Gentau in the Ossau Valley of the Pyrenees, France (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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  Lake Kaniere is a glacial lake in the West Coast region of New Zealand. (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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  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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  Ice melting on Lake Balaton in Hungary (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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  Cross sectional diagram of limnological lake zones (left) and algal community types (right) (from Lake)
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  Lura Lakes are the glacial lakes of the Lurë Mountains, Albania (from Lake)
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  The crater lake of Mount Rinjani, Indonesia (from Lake)
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  Satellite image of subglacial Lake Vostok in Antarctica. Image credit: NASA (from Subglacial lake)
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  Five Flower Lake in Jiuzhaigou, Sichuan (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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  These kettle lakes in Alaska were formed by a retreating glacier. (from Lake)
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  Crater Lake in Oregon, USA (from Volcanogenic 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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  Lake Mapourika, New Zealand (from 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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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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