Lake Futalaufquen
Encyclopedia
Futalaufquen Lake is located in the Argentine
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...

 province of Chubut. This name came from the Mapudungun
Mapudungun
The Mapuche language, Mapudungun is a language isolate spoken in south-central Chile and west central Argentina by the Mapuche people. It is also spelled Mapuzugun and sometimes called Mapudungu or Araucanian...

 language. "Futa" means great, and "laufquen" means lake
Lake
A lake is a body of relatively still fresh or salt water of considerable size, localized in a basin, that is surrounded by land. Lakes are inland and not part of the ocean and therefore are distinct from lagoons, and are larger and deeper than ponds. Lakes can be contrasted with rivers or streams,...

.

Location

Lake Futalaufquen is located within the national park Los Alerces
Los Alerces National Park
The Los Alerces National Park is a national park in Chubut Province, Argentina, some 30 miles from Esquel. It is a park of 2,630 square kilometres along the border with Chile, best known for the alerce trees from which the park takes its name.The park was created in 1937 in order to protect the...

. It originates from a glacier
Glacier
A glacier is a large persistent body of ice that forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. At least 0.1 km² in area and 50 m thick, but often much larger, a glacier slowly deforms and flows due to stresses induced by its weight...

, and is in a deep valley, the ancient remains of a large glacier that was there 10,000 years behind the end of the last ice age.

Description

The surface lies at an altitude of 518 meters with an area of 44,600,000 square meters (44.6 square km).

The average depth is 101 meters.

The greatest depth is 168 meters.

The volume of water contained in the lake is 4.51 billion km3 or metric tonnes.

The length of its shores is 72.5 km.

Water is present 94% of the year.

The area of the water basin is 2,920km2.

It lets 150m3 of water into the Río Futaleufú each second.

Outlet

It leaves the basin by means of the Río Futaleufú
Futaleufú River
The Futaleufú River is a river fed by the lakes in the Los Alerces National Park in Chubut Province, Argentina, crossing the Andes Mountains and the international border into Chile and opening into the Yelcho Lake....

, from which the water crosses the mountains to empty into the Pacific Ocean
Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...

in Chile.
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