Portal:Lakes
The Lakes Portal
A portal dedicated to Lakes
Introduction

A lake is a naturally occurring, relatively large body of water localized in a basin or interconnected basins surrounded by dry land. Lakes lie completely on land and are separate from the ocean, although, like the much larger oceans, they form part of the Earth's water cycle by serving as large standing pools of storage water. 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 are typically much 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. 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. Lakes are also distinct from lagoons, which are shallow tidal pools dammed by sandbars at coastal regions. 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 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...)
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Lake Manix is a former lake fed by the Mojave River in the Mojave Desert. It lies within San Bernardino County, California. Located close to Barstow, this lake had the shape of a cloverleaf and covered four basins named Coyote, Cady/Manix, Troy and Afton. It covered a surface area of 236 square kilometres (91 sq mi) and reached an altitude of 543 metres (1,781 ft) at highstands, although poorly recognizable shorelines have been found at altitudes of 547–558 metres (1,795–1,831 ft). The lake was fed by increased runoff during the Pleistocene and overflowed into the Lake Mojave basin and from there to Lake Manly in Death Valley, or less likely into the Bristol Lake basin and from there to the Colorado River.
The lake formed about 500,000 years before present, when the Mojave River left the Victorville area and started to drain into Manix and Lake Harper. The lake did not immediately include the Afton basin; its integration occurred only about 190,000 years ago, most likely due to a catastrophic flood. Lake Manix lasted until 25,000–13,800 years ago, when Afton Canyon formed, either through slow downcutting or a large outburst flood.
The lake supported a rich ecosystem, including birds, fish, mammals and plants. A group of archeological finds in the area have been called, controversially, the "Lake Manix Industry". (Full article...)General topics
Lake zones |
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Lake stratification |
Lake types |
See also |
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- WikiProject Lakes
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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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