Lake

Lake

This was the lake in the Camp Cooriemungle. The lake was significantly peaceful and there were some duck quacking across the lake at some point. The still water acts like a giant mirror, reflecting the trees and bush on the lake.



A lake is a body of water or other liquid of considerable size surrounded by land. The vast majority of lakes on Earth are fresh water, and most lie in the Northern Hemisphere at higher latitudes. In ecology the environment of a lake is referred to as lacustrine. Large lakes are occasionally referred to as "inland seas" and small seas are occasionally referred to as lakes.

Salt lakes (also called saline lakes) can form where there is no natural outlet or where the water evaporates rapidly, and the drainage surface of the water table has a higher than normal salt content. Examples of salt lakes include Great Salt Lake, the Caspian Sea and the Dead Sea.

Small, crescent-shaped lakes called oxbow lakes can form in river valleys as the result of meandering. The slow-moving river forms a sinuous shape as the outer side of bends are eroded away more rapidly than the inner side. Eventually a horseshoe bend is formed and the river cuts through the narrow neck. This new passage then forms the main passage for the river and the ends of the bend become silted up, thus forming a bow-shaped lake.

Lake Vostok is an subglacial lake in Antarctica, possibly the largest in the world. The pressure from ice and the internal chemical composition means that if the lake were drilled into, it may result in a fissure which would spray in a similar fashion to a geyser.

Some lakes, such as Lake Baikal and Lake Tanganyika lie along continental rift zones, and are created by the crust's subsidence as two plates are pulled apart. These lakes are the oldest and deepest in the world, and may be destined over millions of years to become oceans. The Red Sea is thought to have originated as a rift valley lake.

• The largest lake in the world by surface area is the Caspian Sea. With a surface area of 394,299 km², it has a surface area greater than the next six largest lakes combined.
• The deepest lake is Lake Baikal in Siberia, with a bottom at 1,637 m (5,371 ft.) and is the world's largest freshwater lake by volume.
• The world's oldest lake is Lake Baikal, followed by Lake Tanganyika (Tanzania).
• The world's highest lake is Lhagba Pool in Tibet at 6,368 m.
• The world's lowest lake is the Dead Sea, currently (2005) 418 m (1,371 ft.) below sea level. It is also one of the lakes with highest salt concentration.

• Africa - Lake Victoria, also the second largest freshwater lake on Earth. It is one of the Great Lakes of Africa.
• Antarctica - Lake Vostok (subglacial)
• Asia - Caspian Sea, also the largest on Earth.
• Australia - Lake Eyre
• Europe - Lake Ladoga, followed by Lake Onega, both located in northwestern Russia.
• North America - Lake Superior
• South America - Lake Titicaca, which is also the highest navigable body of water on Earth at 3,821 m above sea level.

• Finland is known as The Land of the Thousand Lakes (actually there are 187,888 lakes in Finland, of which 60,000 are large)
• Minnesota is known as The Land of Ten Thousand Lakes.
• The license plate of the Canadian province of Manitoba used to claim "100,000 lakes" as a direct upmanship on neighboring Minnesota.
• The Great Lakes of North America originated in the ice age.
• Over 60% of the world's lakes are in Canada; this is because of the deranged drainage system that dominates the country.