Rugged Coastline

by Joyce Wasser

Title

Rugged Coastline

Artist

Joyce Wasser

Medium

Photograph - Photography

Description

Usually when I think of Lake Erie I think of the sandy beaches of Presque Isle or Conneaut. Here a little bit different view of it from a small park in Ashtabula County, Ohio.

Lake Erie is the fourth-largest lake (by surface area) of the five Great Lakes in North America, and the eleventh-largest globally if measured in terms of surface area. It is the southernmost, shallowest, and smallest by volume of the Great Lakes and therefore also has the shortest average water residence time. At its deepest point Lake Erie is 210 feet (64 metres) deep.

Lake Erie was carved out by glacier ice, and in its current form is less than 4,000 years old, which is a short span in geological terms. Before this, the land on which the lake now sits went through several complex stages. A large lowland basin formed over two million years ago as a result of an eastern flowing river that existed well before the Pleistocene ice ages. This ancient drainage system was destroyed by the first major glacier in the area, while it deepened and enlarged the lowland areas, allowing water to settle and form a lake. The glaciers were able to carve away more land on the eastern side of the lowland because the bedrock is made of shale which is softer than the carbonate rocks of dolomite and limestone on the western side. Thus, the eastern and central basins of the modern lake are much deeper than the western basin, which averages only 25 feet (7.6 m) deep and is rich in nutrients and fish. Lake Erie is the shallowest of the Great Lakes because the ice was relatively thin and lacked erosion power when it reached that far south.

Uploaded

September 25th, 2017

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