Pink Lake
Encyclopedia
- Pink LakePink Lake (Western Australia)Pink Lake is a salt lake in the Goldfields-Esperance region of Western Australia. It lies about west of Esperance and is bounded to the East by the South Coast Highway.-Description:...
is also a lake near Esperance, Western AustraliaEsperance, Western AustraliaEsperance is a large town in the Goldfields-Esperance region of Western Australia, located on the Southern Ocean coastline approximately east-southeast of the state capital, Perth. The shire of Esperance is home to 9,536 people as of the 2006 census, its major industries are tourism, agriculture,...
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Pink Lake is a meromictic
Meromictic
A meromictic lake has layers of water that do not intermix. In ordinary, "holomictic" lakes, at least once each year there is a physical mixing of the surface and the deep waters...
lake located in Gatineau Park
Gatineau Park
Gatineau Park is a park located in the National Capital Region, in Quebec's Outaouais region, just north of Ottawa, Ontario. Administered by the National Capital Commission, the park is a 361 km² wedge of land to the west of the Gatineau River...
, Quebec
Quebec
Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
. The surface of the waters are a deep green due to the abundance of algae
Algae
Algae are a large and diverse group of simple, typically autotrophic organisms, ranging from unicellular to multicellular forms, such as the giant kelps that grow to 65 meters in length. They are photosynthetic like plants, and "simple" because their tissues are not organized into the many...
in the water. The lake is in danger of eutrophication
Eutrophication
Eutrophication or more precisely hypertrophication, is the movement of a body of water′s trophic status in the direction of increasing plant biomass, by the addition of artificial or natural substances, such as nitrates and phosphates, through fertilizers or sewage, to an aquatic system...
due to human activities. Park management forbids swimming in the lake, walking domestic animals near it, straying from the wooden boardwalk for sight-seers, and throwing stones into the lake.
History
Pink Lake is named after a family of Irish settlers who in 1826 cleared a farm in the area.Properties
Due to the meromictic properties of Pink Lake there are ancient forms of bacteriaBacteria
Bacteria are a large domain of prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria have a wide range of shapes, ranging from spheres to rods and spirals...
which use sulfur
Sulfur
Sulfur or sulphur is the chemical element with atomic number 16. In the periodic table it is represented by the symbol S. It is an abundant, multivalent non-metal. Under normal conditions, sulfur atoms form cyclic octatomic molecules with chemical formula S8. Elemental sulfur is a bright yellow...
instead of oxygen to perform photosynthesis
Photosynthesis
Photosynthesis is a chemical process that converts carbon dioxide into organic compounds, especially sugars, using the energy from sunlight. Photosynthesis occurs in plants, algae, and many species of bacteria, but not in archaea. Photosynthetic organisms are called photoautotrophs, since they can...
. These bacteria form a layer about 7 metres from the bottom to avoid the oxygenated water and maximize sunlight exposure.
Pink Lake also has a desalinized variant of the three-spined stickleback
Three-spined stickleback
The three-spined stickleback, Gasterosteus aculeatus, is a fish native to much of northern Europe, northern Asia and North America. It has been introduced into parts of southern and central Europe.-Distribution and morphological variation:...
fish.
In 2006, research was in progress to identify the patterns of atmospheric conditions over the past 10,000 years by examining the annual deposits of sediment in Pink Lake.
Popular Culture
Pink Lake plays a symbolic role in the novel Wash This Blood Clean From My HandWash This Blood Clean From My Hand
Wash This Blood Clean From My Hand is a crime novel by French author Fred Vargas, originally published in France in 2004.The novel is part of her Commissaire Adamsberg series. As with many of Vargas' novels in English translation, the English title is not a literal translation...
by Fred Vargas
Fred Vargas
Fred Vargas is the pseudonym of the French historian, archaeologist and writer Frédérique Audoin-Rouzeau . Her crime fiction policiers have won three International Dagger Awards from the Crime Writers Association, for three successive novels: in 2006, 2008 and 2009. She is the first author to...
.