Great Lakes trivia thread

   / Great Lakes trivia thread #1  
jimmyj

jimmyj

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Did you know....
-Samuel de Champlain was the 1st European to see them
-The watershed covers 540,000 square km (208,000 sq miles)
-The drainage basin is 91% forested
-Their shoreline is over 17,000 km (10,500 miles)
-The surface area is 244,000 sq km
-They hold 20% of the worlds fresh water
Tomorrow I will post more about the impact of humans on the lakes
 
   / Great Lakes trivia thread #3  
I have a lot of great childhood memories of Lake Erie, around Kingsville, on the north shore across from Sandusky.
That was in the late 50's, when the water was still pretty clean. I recall visiting the area in the 70's...the water was very poluted... very few beach areas clear enough for swimming. I hear it's cleared up a fair bit now.
Never did encounter Bessie...

Pete
 
   / Great Lakes trivia thread #4  
I don't think Champlain was the first European to see all of the great lakes, just the eastern part.

Jean Nicolet is widely claimed to be the first European to see Lake Michigan.

Sea lamprey's entered the great lakes via the man made locks and decimated the large predator species such as lake trout.
Alewives, a small fish, also entered the great lakes the same way. Their population exploded when the lake trout died off.
So, the government brought in pacific salmon to eat the alewives.
Then the salmon at them and the perch, too.
So now there's a huge imbalance of native species VS non-native species, directly caused by the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway.
At least 25 non-native species now inhabit the great lakes.
 
   / Great Lakes trivia thread #5  
Lake Baikal is the world's largest freshwater lake by volume, approximately 20% of earth's surface fresh water, more than all 5 great lakes combined.

While Lake Superior is big, technically, Lake Michigan and Lake Huron is one lake because they share the same surface elevation and the strait that connects them is not a river and has no regular current flow direction. Therefore, Lake Michigan/Huron is the world's largest fresh water lake by surface area.

The largest lake in the world is the Caspian Sea, but it is salt water.
 
   / Great Lakes trivia thread #6  
Lake TAAL is a nice lake. Just a long way to travel for a boat ride.

mark
 
   / Great Lakes trivia thread #7  
MossRoad said:
<snip>

The largest lake in the world is the Caspian Sea, but it is salt water.
Click to expand...

Well, it was but I doubt it now. Due to diverting almost all the rivers that used to run into it for irrigation the actual "water surface" is way down from what it was.

Harry K
 
   / Great Lakes trivia thread #8  
turnkey4099 said:
Well, it was but I doubt it now. Due to diverting almost all the rivers that used to run into it for irrigation the actual "water surface" is way down from what it was.

Harry K
Click to expand...

I guess you could say its a nice lake, but not a great lake.... :laughing:
 
   / Great Lakes trivia thread #9  
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