Disappearing Lake? EarthCache

This cache has been archived.

rainbowtree: DO NOT post a log to this cache.
If you choose to disregard CO's request and log this archived cache, be sure you have the following ...
1. Pics at the required coordinates with you or your signature item as verification of visit.
2. All questions completely/thoughtfully answered.
A special thank you to those who completed all the requirements as requested -and- added the Journeys to your log.

More
Hidden : 6/28/2015
Difficulty:
1 out of 5
Terrain:
1 out of 5

Size: Size: other (other)

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Geocache Description:


EARTHCACHE REQUIREMENTS
Each cacher must send his/her own answers BEFORE logging a find. Enjoy the journey (learning adventure) as well as the destination (smiley earned). Remember to take only pictures and leave only footprints. To get credit for this Earthcache, complete the following tasks:

1. MESSAGE :-) or EMAIL …. GROUND VIEW ... a. POSTED COORDS. Look to your left. Estimate the percent of open water. ... b. POSTED COORDS. Look to your right. Estimate the percent of open water.

2. MESSAGE :-) or EMAIL …. AERIAL VIEW ... Go to Google Earth using the posted coords. What percentage of the lake is open water? NOTE: You can also answer this by observing various points around the lake.

3. MESSAGE :-) or EMAIL …. APPEARING LAKE ... Based on the reading, how did this lake form?

4. MESSAGE :-) or EMAIL …. DISAPPEARING LAKE ... a. Based on your observations at the posted coords, is this lake disappearing? Explain. ... b. Based on your observations of the entire lake, is this lake disappearing? Explain. ... c. Based on the reading, is this lake disappearing? Explain.

OPTIONAL - Please respect the time and effort involved in finding and creating this earthcache by adding A B C to your log.

A. Post a picture at or near the posted coords. This picture is your log signature verifying that you were at the earthcache.

B. JOURNEY OF THE MIND ... Science explains what we observe. Relate (in your own words) something you found interesting in the reading. This adds to your learning adventure and your log.

C. JOURNEY OF THE HEART ... Art shares our personal experience of what we see. Share something special you found on site, and why it is special to you ... prose / story / poem / picture. This is a memorable addition to your log and will make other hearts smile.


APPEARING LAKES

GLACIERS
Huge masses of ice (glaciers) carved out great pits and scrubbed the land as they moved slowly along. When the glaciers melted, water filled those depressions, forming lakes. Glaciers also carved deep valleys and deposited large quantities of earth, pebbles, and boulders as they melted. These materials sometimes formed dams that trapped water and created more lakes.

TECTONIC PLATES
Some lake basins form where plate tectonics changed the Earth’s crust, making it buckle and fold or break apart. When the crust breaks, deep cracks, called faults, may form. These faults make natural basins that may fill with water from rainfall or from streams flowing in the basin.

VOLCANOES
Many lakes form as a result of volcanoes. After a volcano becomes inactive, its crater may fill with rain or melted snow. Sometimes the top of a volcano is blown off or collapses during an eruption, leaving a depression called a caldera. It, too, may fill with rainwater and become a lake.

RIVERS
Not all lakes are created by basins filling with water. Some lakes are formed by rivers. Mature rivers often wind back and forth across a plain in wide loops called meanders. During periods of flooding, a swollen, rushing river may create a shortcut and bypass a meander, leaving a body of standing water. This type of small lake is called an oxbow lake.

DAMS
Lakes may also be created by landslides or mudslides that send soil, rock, or mud sliding down hills and mountains. The debris piles up in natural dams that can block the flow of a stream, forming a lake. People make lakes by digging basins or by damming rivers or springs.


DISAPPEARING LAKES

CLIMATE
When rate of evaporation removing water from a lake exceeds rate of precipitation adding water to a lake, the lake slowly disappears.

EARTHQUAKES
A fissure could provide an outlet for lake water to escape.

DAMS
Once a dam is broken (avalanche, earthquake, warming, etc.), water bursts through and the lake sometimes drains.

SUCCESSION
Over time a lake will become filled in with sediments and particulates deposited from within the lake and by inflowing waters. As sediments build up, the lake becomes shallower. Eventually, a lake can transition into a wetland or a dry land environment. It takes hundreds of years for a lake to be transformed from a body of open water into soil.


GLADES DAM LAKE
Glades Dam Lake (2.5 miles long) was formed by damming the South Branch of Slippery Rock Creek to make a large but fluctuating impoundment. Located in Butler County, it is 52-acres owned by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and managed by the Fish and Boat Commission for public fishing and boating. The water level of Glades Dam Lake is drawn down in the spring to protect vegetative cover at the south end of the lake and raised in the fall to accommodate migrating waterfowl. The lake is shallow and tends to freeze early and thaw later than other nearby bodies of water.




RESOURCES
http://education.nationalgeographic.com/education/encyclopedia/lake/?ar_a=1
http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/earth/geophysics/disappearing-lake.htm
http://www.pabirds.org/siteguide/PASitePage.php?SiteID=45

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