Crater Lake

This article describes the crater lake in the United States. For the lake of the same name in Antarctica, see Crater Lake (Deception Island) .

Crater Lake
Crater Lake with Wizard Island in the foreground and Mount Scott in the background to the left
Geographical location	Klamath County in Oregon (USA)
Islands	Wizard Island
Data
Coordinates	42 ° 55 '53 "  N , 122 ° 6' 46"  W Coordinates: 42 ° 55 '53 "  N , 122 ° 6' 46"  W
Altitude above sea level	1882  m
surface	53.2 km²
length	9.6 km
width	8 kilometers
volume	17.46 km³
Maximum depth	594 m
Middle deep	350 m
particularities	Crater lake

Crater Lake is a crater lake of the Mount Mazama volcano in the southern state of Oregon in the United States. Crater Lake is the central feature of Crater Lake National Park and is characterized by its unusually deep blue color. The lake was created by filling the caldera with rainwater. The amount of water changes approximately every 250 years.

water

The Crater Lake with a volume of 17.46 km³ has a deep blue and clear water. The lake has neither inflows nor outflows. The water consists of rainwater and snowmelt water. The water quality is the best in North America. In 1972 the Secchi disk measured a depth of vision of 144 feet (43.9 m); this is one of the greatest values ​​ever measured. In 1997 the depth of view was measured to be 142 feet (43.3 m). The pH value is between 7 and 8. The park administration attaches great importance to maintaining the water quality. Motor boats operated on the lake have a closed fuel system so that no traces of oil get into the water.

Dimensions

The water surface has a height of 1883 m above sea level. d. M. and an area of ​​53.2 km². The shore length measures 35.1 km. The lake has a horizontal spread of 8 by 9.6 km and an average depth of 350 m, the deepest point is 594 m. It is the deepest lake in the United States and the second deepest in North America.

geology

Phantom Ship Island

The volcano belongs to the arc of the Cascade Range . Once about 3700 meters high, Mount Mazama lost 1600 meters in height when the volcano erupted about 7700 years ago; the exact date is controversial. More recent analyzes are included

• 5724 ± 20 cal v. Chr., Calibrated with CalPal from 6845 C-14y Before Present ; or
• 5677 ± 150 cal v. Chr.

The supermassive eruption reached a value of 7 on the volcanic explosion index and had a material output of 150 km³. The result was that the dome of the volcano collapsed and formed today's caldera. Between 88 and 224 million tons of aerosols were released into the atmosphere and caused a temperature drop of around 0.6 ° C in the northern hemisphere. The ozone layer was also noticeably affected by the outbreak.

More eruptions followed, forming the central platform, Wizard Island, Merriam Cone, and other elevations in the lake, for example. The hydrothermal activity at the bottom of the lake is an indication of a possible renewed eruption of the volcano.

There are two islands: Wizard Island ("Wizard Island") and Phantom Ship Island ("Ghost Ship Island "). Wizard Island has an elevation of 230 m at mean water level and an area of ​​1,278 km². Wizard Island, for its part, is a small (inactive) volcano that dates back to around 4600 BC. BC originated. The Merriam Cone is an elevation below the surface of the water.

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Others

The lake has had other names over time: Deep Blue Lake, Blue Lake, and Lake Majesty . The local indigenous people of the Klamath still worship Crater Lake as a sacred site today.

The Old Man of the Lake , a centuries-old tree trunk, has been floating upright in the water on the lake since at least the 19th century .

The Pacific Crest Trail runs along the west bank of the lake.

The lake is poor in living things and free from algae. Since the lake had no original fish population, were used from 1888 to 1941 different fish, of which only a subspecies is the Rotlachses ( kokanee salmon ) and rainbow trout have established.

The blue of the lake

"The deep blue of Crater Lake in Oregon, the deepest lake in the United States, is of an unbearable beauty that far exceeds the weak powers of rational thought [...] Since only snow and rain fill it - while the sun and wind provide evaporation - the lake is free of suspended particles such as those found in flowing waters; the blue parts of the sunlight are reflected, while the other colors are absorbed, making it the bluest of all blue lakes in the world. "

Alexander Theroux: Blue . (From the American by Michael Bischoff )

photos

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  Satellite image

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  geology

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  The lake in winter with a view of Wizard Island

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  State Quarter 2005

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  Panorama from Crater Lake

literature

• Stephen L. Harris: Fire Mountains of the West: The Cascade and Mono Lake Volcanoes. Mountain Press Publishing Company, Missoula 1988, ISBN 0-87842-220-X .
• Ann G. Harris, Esther Tuttle, Sherwood D. Tuttle: Geology of National Parks: Fifth Edition. Kendall / Hunt Publishing, Iowa 1997, ISBN 0-7872-5353-7 .
• Charles R. Bacon, Marvin A. Lanphere: Eruptive history and geochronology of Mount Mazama and the Crater Lake region, Oregon. In: Geological Society of American Bulletin. v. 118, 2006, pp. 1331-1359. doi: 10.1130 / B25906.1

Web links

Commons : Crater Lake  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

• National Park Service: Crater Lake (English)
• Crater Lake Data Clearinghouse of the United States Geological Survey (English)
• Diving into mysterious Crater Lake - CNET News.com (August 25, 2006)
• Geological map of Crater Lake, US Geological Survey (via Wired) ( direct link to the USGS edition ; PDF; 19.1 MB)
• Crater Lake in the Geographic Names Information System of the United States Geological Survey

Individual evidence

1. ↑ www.oregonexplorer.inf (English)
2. ↑ Secchi Records. on: secchidipin.org
3. ↑ Alexander Theroux: Blue. Instructions to read a color. Europäische Verlagsanstalt, Hamburg 1998, ISBN 3-434-50428-1 , p. 76. Translated from the American (published in New York 1994) by Michael Bischoff.
4. ↑ Crater Lake. Geology information brochure
5. ^ CA Wood, J. Kienle: Volcanoes of North America: United States and Canada. Cambridge University Press, 1990, ISBN 0-521-36469-8 , pp. 193-195
6. ^ ^{A b} C. M. Zdanowicz, GA Zielinski, MS Germani: Mount Mazama eruption: Calendrical age verified and atmospheric impact assessed . In: Geology . tape 27 , no. 7 , July 1, 1999, ISSN  0091-7613 , p. 621-624 , doi : 10.1130 / 0091-7613 (1999) 027 <0621: MMECAV> 2.3.CO; 2 ( geoscienceworld.org [accessed September 14, 2017]).
7. ↑ sacred-destinations.com: Crater Lake (English)
8. ↑ Galileo TV , accessed on October 18, 2016.