WALLPAPER OF LAKES

A lake (from Latin lacus) is a terrain feature (or physical feature), a body of liquid on the surface of a world that is localized to the bottom of basin (another type of landform or terrain feature; that is, it is not global) and moves slowly if it moves at all. On Earth, a body of water is considered a lake when it is inland, not part of the ocean, is larger and deeper than a pond, and is fed by a river.[2][3] The only world other than Earth known to harbor lakes is Titan, Saturn's largest moon, which has lakes of ethane, most likely mixed with methane. It is not known if Titan's lakes are fed by rivers, though Titan's surface is carved by numerous river beds.

Natural lakes on Earth are generally found in mountainous areas, rift zones, and areas with ongoing or recent glaciation. Other lakes are found in endorheic basins or along the courses of mature rivers. In some parts of the world, there are many lakes because of chaotic drainage patterns left over from the last Ice Age. All lakes are temporary over geologic time scales, as they will slowly fill in with sediments or spill out of the basin containing them.
Contents
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* 1 Meaning and usage of "lake"
* 2 Distribution of lakes
* 3 Origin of natural lakes
* 4 Types of lakes
* 5 Characteristics
* 6 Limnology
* 7 How lakes disappear
* 8 Extraterrestrial lakes
* 9 Notable lakes
o 9.1 Largest by continent
* 10 See also
* 11 References
* 12 External links

[edit] Meaning and usage of "lake"
Lake Maracaibo (technically a bay), Venezuela. Green swirls on the lake are duckweed.

There is considerable uncertainty about defining the difference between lakes and ponds, and no current internationally accepted definition of either term across scientific disciplines or political boundaries.[citation needed] For example, limnologists have defined lakes as waterbodies which are simply a larger version of a pond or which have wave action on the shoreline, or where wind induced turbulence plays a major role in mixing the water column. None of these definitions completely excludes ponds and all are difficult to measure. For this reason there has been increasing use made of simple size-based definitions to separate ponds and lakes. One definition of "lake" is a body of water of 2 hectares (5 acres) or more in area[4]:331[5], however others[who?] have defined lakes as waterbodies of 5 hectares (12 acres) and above[citation needed], or 8 hectares (20 acres) and above[citation needed] (see also the definition of "pond"). Charles Elton, one of the founders of ecology, regarded lakes as waterbodies of 40 hectares (99 acres) or more.[6] The term "lake" is also used to describe a feature such as Lake Eyre, which is a dry basin most of the time but may become filled under seasonal conditions of heavy rainfall. In common usage, many lakes bear names ending with the word "pond", and a lesser number of names ending with "lake" are in quasi-technical fact, ponds.

In lake 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. Smaller lakes tend to put the word "lake" after the name, as in Green Lake, while larger lakes often invert the word order, as in Lake Ontario, at least in North America. In some places, the word "lake" does not correctly appear in the name at all (e.g., Windermere in Cumbria).

Only one lake in the English Lake District is actually called a lake; other than Bassenthwaite Lake, the others are all "meres" or "waters". Only six bodies of water in Scotland are known as lakes (the others are lochs): the Lake of Menteith, the Lake of the Hirsel, Pressmennan Lake, Cally Lake near Gatehouse of Fleet, the saltwater Manxman's Lake at Kirkcudbright Bay, and The Lake at Fochabers. Of these only the Lake of Menteith and Cally Lake are natural bodies of fresh water.
The Seven Rila Lakes are a group of glacial lakes in the Bulgarian Rila mountains
Oeschinen Lake in the Swiss Alps

[edit] Distribution of lakes

The majority of lakes on Earth are fresh water, and most lie in the Northern Hemisphere at higher latitudes. More than 60% of the world's lakes are in Canada;[citation needed] this is because of the deranged drainage system that dominates the country.

Finland is known as The Land of the Thousand Lakes, (actually there are 187,888 lakes in Finland, of which 60,000 are large),[7] and the U.S. state of Minnesota is known as The Land of Ten Thousand Lakes. The license plates of the Canadian province of Manitoba used to claim "100,000 lakes"[citation needed] as one-upmanship on Minnesota,[citation needed] whose license plates boast of its "10,000 lakes."

Most lakes have a natural outflow[citation needed] in the form of a river or stream, but some do not and lose water solely by evaporation or underground seepage or both. They are termed endorheic lakes (see below).

Many lakes are artificial and are constructed for hydro-electric power generation, recreational purposes, industrial use, agricultural use, or domestic water supply.

Evidence of extraterrestrial lakes exists; "definitive evidence of lakes filled with methane" was announced by NASA[citation needed] as returned by the Cassini Probe observing the moon Titan, which orbits the planet Saturn.

Globally, lakes are greatly outnumbered by ponds: of an estimated 304 million standing water bodies worldwide, 91% are 1 hectare (2.5 acres) or less in area (see definition of ponds) [8]. Small lakes are also much more numerous than big lakes: in terms of area, one third of the world's standing water is represented by lakes and ponds of 10 hectares (25 acres) or less.[citation needed] However, large lakes contribute disproportionately to the area of standing water with 122 large lakes of 1,000 square kilometres (390 sq mi, 100,000 ha, 247,000 acres) or more representing about 29% of the total global area of standing inland water.[citation needed]

[edit] Origin of natural lakes
Ipperwash Beach, Lake Huron, Ontario, Canada

There are a number of natural processes that can form lakes. A recent tectonic uplift of a mountain range can create bowl-shaped depressions that accumulate water and form lakes. The advance and retreat of glaciers can scrape depressions in the surface where water accumulates; such lakes are common in Scandinavia, Patagonia, Siberia, and Canada. The most notables examples are probably the Great Lakes of North America.

Lakes can also form by means of landslides or by glacial blockages. An example of the latter occurred during the last ice age in the U.S. state of Washington, when a huge lake formed behind a glacial flow; when the ice retreated, the result was an immense flood that created the Dry Falls at Sun Lakes, Washington.
Salt crystals, on the shore of Lake Urmia, Iran

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 Aral Sea, and the Dead Sea.

Small, crescent-shaped lakes called oxbow lakes can form in river valleys as a 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.

Crater lakes are formed in volcanic craters and calderas which fill up with precipitation more rapidly than they empty via evaporation. Sometimes the latter are called caldera lakes, although often no distinction is made. An example is Crater Lake in Oregon, located within the caldera of Mount Mazama. The caldera was created in a massive volcanic eruption that led to the subsidence of Mount Mazama around 4860 BC.

Some lakes, such as Lake Jackson in Florida, USA, come into existence as a result of sinkhole activity.

Lake Vostok is a subglacial lake in Antarctica, possibly the largest in the world. The pressure from the ice atop it and its internal chemical composition mean that, if the lake were drilled into, a fissure could result that would spray somewhat like a geyser.

Most lakes are geologically young and shrinking since the natural results of erosion will tend to wear away the sides and fill the basin. Exceptions are those such as Lake Baikal and Lake Tanganyika that 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. Lake Baikal, which is 25-30 million years old, is deepening at a faster rate than it is being filled by erosion and may be destined over millions of years to become attached to the global ocean. The Red Sea, for example, is thought to have originated as a rift valley lake.Source URL: http://worldofcelebrityz.blogspot.com/2009/08/wallpaper-of-lakes.html
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