In a country estimated to have around 124,000 lakes, America is home to the third oldest lake in the world: Lake Tahoe.
And by default, the 300 square kilometer water surface takes the cake for being the oldest permanent freshwater lake in North America.
Lake Tahoe is at least 2.3 million years old, according to Winnie Kortemeier, professor of geosciences, who spoke about the ancient water to Humanity. Las Vegas sun.
Kortemeier is a professor at Western Nevada College in Carson City and has been researching Lake Tahoe for almost twenty years.
Lake Tahoe, which straddles the border of California and Nevada, was revealed as the oldest lake in North America – at least 2.3 million years old
Winnie Kortemeier, a professor of geosciences at Western Nevada College in Carson City, Nevada, made the discovery after extensively investigating Tahoe since 2005.
And just last Monday, she presented her creation of a planet-wide timeline — which used years of research and scientific data from other published research papers to compare Tahoe to other ancient lakes.
Then she shared her findings.
“It’s just really hard to date a guy anymore,” she told the Las Vegas Sun. “But in Tahoe it’s very clear how old the lake is. It must be older than 2.3 million years.’
She began her research into Lake Tahoe by studying volcanic rocks in the Tahoe City area.
Figuring out the age of lakes is by no means a simple process, but she noted that Lake Tahoe is fortunate that the lava flow interacted with water, allowing the rocks to be dated.
Over the past 17 million years, Nevada has expanded twice as wide as it began – and the lake is the first basin in this formation – with the Sierra Nevada running along the western side and the Carson Range running along the eastern shoreline.
Tahoe was created by faulting – which is an unusual phenomenon and different from other lakes created by glaciers
Skylandia Beach, Commons Beach, the cliffs above the city and all the way to Eagle Rock on the west coast are some of the places where she collected the volcanic rocks.
She first made the discovery in 2012 after sending five rock samples to the US Geological Survey’s geochronology laboratory for radiometric dating.
From there, she discovered that lava flows in the Tahoe Basin occurred at three different times: 2.3 million years ago, 2 million years ago and 920,000 years ago.
When the lava erupted, it interacted with the lake water and the sediments in the lake. Yet more evidence indicating that Lake Tahoe existed at the time of the lava flows.
A common misconception is that Clear Lake is considered North America’s oldest lake, but Kortemeier’s findings debunk that claim.
Lake Tahoe is not only the oldest lake in America, but it is also located on the third oldest lake in the world
Lake Tahoe is also the second deepest lake in America at its deepest point, which is 500 meters deep.
Her research on contiguous lake sediments found at Clear Lake estimates the lake is 480,000 years old – significantly younger than Lake Tahoe.
But she was still surprised when her research revealed that Lake Tahoe is the third oldest lake on Earth.
“It’s number three in the whole world because it’s really rare for a lake to be created like this,” she added.
She placed Lake Baikal, a lake in Siberia, as the oldest existing lake in the world – with an age of about 5 million to 10.3 million years.
The second oldest lake in the world, just ahead of Tahoe, is Lake Tanganyika in East Africa, estimated to be between 8 and 10 million years old.
The research for both lakes arose from their continuous sedimentary sequence – which refers to the layers in the bedrock.
Kortemeier placed Lake Baikal, a lake in Siberia, as the oldest existing lake in the world – with an age of about 5 million to 10.3 million years
Similar to Tahoe, Lake Baikal was also formed by faults
All three lakes – Baikal, Tanganyika and Tahoe – were created by faults, Kortemeier added, which is an unusual phenomenon and different from other lakes created by glaciers.
Baikal, Tanganyika and Tahoe are all fault line lakes that have similar characteristics: long and thin.
Lake Tahoe itself is 22 miles long and 12 miles wide.
Tahoe’s deepest area is 500 meters deep, making it the second deepest lake in America, next to Oregon’s Crater Lake, according to US sources. Keep Tahoe Blue.
“The oldest lakes on Earth are usually located in an active fault basin, where the basin is still being actively disturbed and formed,” Kortemeier added.
“So even if you put sediment in there all the time, the bottom still sinks… and so the basins continue to deepen over time. And that’s why you get these ancient lakes, these really ancient lakes.”
The Tahoe Basin also has several fault lines running underneath it, which contributes to why the west side of the lake is deeper than the east side.
Over time, it was actually pulled apart by the Earth’s movement.
“Nevada has expanded twice as wide over the past 17 million years as it started,” Kortemeier said. ‘When that happens, the basins fall down. As you expand the area wider and wider, the basins fall down faults, and then you thin the crust and the mountains grow taller throughout the Great Basin.”
Kortemeier’s research places Lake Tanganyika in East Africa as the second-oldest lake in the world – estimated to be between 8 million and 10 million years old.
Like Baikal and Tahoe, Lake Tanganyika was formed by faults that were studied using their continuous sedimentary sequence – which refers to the layers in the bedrock.
And because Tahoe has seen volcanic activity over the past million years, it is considered dormant, not extinct or dead.
Tahoe is also one of the purest bodies of water in the world, according to research, with 99.994 percent of the water being pure. The Tahoe landing.
And because it is the second deepest lake in America, the amount of water in the lake is enough to supply every US resident with 50 liters of water per day for five years.
If you could take all the water out of Tahoe and pour it into an area mirroring the size of California, the water would still be 12 inches deep.
About eight million people live within a half-day drive of the Tahoe Basin, Keep Tahoe Blue reported.
Comprised of 12 ski areas and scenic vistas that have been used as locations for popular films over the years, Lake Tahoe is a landmark in the country.
And now it’s the granddaddy of American lakes.
