Introduction :

Lakes form where there is a supply of water to a topographic low on the land
surface. They are fed mainly by rivers and lose water by flow out into a river and/or
evaporation from the surface. The balance between inflow and outflow and the rate
at which evapora- tion occurs control the level of water in the lake and the water
chemistry. Under condi- tions of high inflow the water level in the lake may be
constant, governed by the spill point of the outflow, and the water remains fresh.
Low water input coupled with high evapora- tion rates in an enclosed basin results
in the concentration of dissolved ions, which may be precipitated as evaporites in a
perennial saline lake or when an ephemeral lake dries out. Lakes are therefore very
sensitive to climate and climate change. Many of the processes that occur in seas
also occur in lakes: deltas form where rivers enter the lake, beaches form along the
margins, density currents flow down to the water bottom and waves act on the
surface. There are, however, important differences with marine settings: the fauna
and flora are distinct, the chemistry of lake waters varies from lake to lake and
certain physical processes of temperature and density stratification are unique to
lacustrine environments.

LAKES AND LACUSTRINE ENVIRONMENTS :

A lake is an inland body of water. Lakes form where there is a depression on the
land surface which is bounded by a sill such that water accumulating in the
depression is retained.
Lakes are typically fed by one or more streams that supply water and sediment from
the surrounding hinterland. Groundwater may also feed water into a lake. The
amount of sediment accumulated in lakes is small compared with marine basins,
but they may be locally significant, resulting in strata hundreds of metres thick and
covering hundreds to thousands of square kilometres.
Sand and mud are the most common components of lake deposits, although almost
any other type of sediment can accumulate in lacustrine (lake) environments,
including limestones , evaporites and organic material.
Plants and animals living in a lake may be preserved as fossils in lacustrine
deposits, and concentrations of organic material can form beds of coal or oil and
gas source rocks . The study of modern lakes is referred to as limnology.

Lake formation :
Large inland depressions that allow the accumulation of water to form a lake are
usually the result of tectonic forces creating a sedimentary basin.

the most important processes for the creation of lake basins are those of continental
extension to generate rifts , basins related to strike-slip within continental crust
and intracontinental sag basins .
Rift and strike- slip basins are bounded by faults that cause parts of the land surface
to subside relative to the surrounding area. With continued movement on the faults
and hence continued subsidence, the lake may become hundreds of meters deep,
and through time may accumulate hundreds or even thousands of meters of
sediment.
Lakes can also be created where thrust faults locally uplift part of the land surface
and create a dam across the path of a river.
A depression on the land surface can also form by erosion.
Glaciers can scour more deeply into a valley. Glacial proces- ses can also create
lakes by building up a natural dam of detritus across a valley floor through the
formation of a terminal moraine . Lakes formed in glacial areas tend to be relatively
small and the chances of long-term preservation of deposits in glacial lakes is lower
as they are typically in areas undergoing erosion .
Volcanic activity can also create large lakes by caldera collapse and explosive
eruptions that remove large quantities of material from the centre of a volcanic
edifice, leaving a rem- nant rim within which a crater lake can form .

Lakes hydrology :
The supply of water to a lake is through streams, groundwater and by direct rainfall
on the lake sur- face. If there is no loss of water from the lake, the level will rise
through time until it reaches the spill point .
A lake is considered to be hydrologically open or hydrologically closed
hydrologically open if :
it is filled to the spill point and there is a balance of water supply into and out of the
basin. So level of water in lake will be constant & water will be frish water if its
constant level .

The surface of a lake will be subject to evaporation of water vapour into the
atmosphere, a process that becomes increasingly important at higher temperatures and where the air is dry. If the rate of evapora- tion exceeds or balances the
rate of water supply there is no outflow from the lake and it is considered to be
hydrologically closed.

three types of lake can be considered :

1- fresh water lake
2- saline lakes
3- Ephemeral lakes

Freshwater lakes have low salinity waters and are either hydrologically open, or
are hydrologically closed with a low supply of dissolved ions allowing the water to
remain fresh.

Saline lakes are hydrologically closed and are perennial water bodies in which
dissolved ions have become concentrated by evaporation.
Ephemeral lakes mainly occur in arid climatic settings and are temporary bodies
of water that exist for a few months or years after large rainstorms in the catchment
area, but are otherwise dry.

Fresh water lakes :

The majority of large modern lakes are freshwater: they occur at latitudes ranging
from the Equator to the polar regions and include some of the largest and deepest
in the world today. Lacustrine deposits from lakes of similar scales are known from
the stratigraphic record, mainly from Devonian through to Neogene strata.

Hydrology of freshwater lakes :

Lakes are relatively static bodies of water, with no currents driven by tidal processes
or oceanic circulation . Waves form when a wind blows over the surface of the water
. However, currents driven by the wind in lakes are too weak to move anything more
than silt and fine sand and will not redistribute coarser sediment. below about 10 or
20m depth the lake waters are unaffected by any wave or current activity. This
allows for the development of lake water stratification , which is seen as a
contrast in the temperature , density and the chemistry of the waters in the upper
and lower parts of the water body.
Two divisions of lake water :
1- epilimnion : which is the upper, warmer lake water
2- hypolimnion : the lower, colder part
they are separated by a surface across which the temperature changes, the
thermocline

Fig : The thermal stratification of fresh lake waters results in a more oxic, upper
layer, the epilimnion , and a colder, anoxic lower layer, the hypolimnion .
Sedimentation in the lake is controlled by this density stratification above and
below the thermocline.

Lake margin clastic deposits :

Where a sediment-laden river enters a lake the water velocity drops abruptly and a
delta forms as coarse material is deposited at the river mouth .

Facies distribution in a freshwater lake with dominantly clastic deposition.

Away from the river mouth the nature of the lake shore deposits will depend on the
strength of winds generating waves and currents in the lake basin. If winds are not
strong, lake shore sediments will tend to be fine-grained but strong, wind-driven
currents can redistribute sandy sediment around the edges of the lake where it can
be reworked by waves into sandy beach deposits . These marginal lacustrine facies
will be similar in character to beaches developed along marine shore lines .

A schematic graphic sedimentary log through clastic deposits in a freshwater lake.

Lacustrine carbonates :
Carbonates can form a significant proportion of the succession in any lake setting
only if the terrigenous clastic input is reduced . Direct chemical precipitation of
carbonate minerals occurs in lakes with raised salinity, but in freshwater lakes the
for- mation of calcium carbonates is predominantly asso- ciated with biological
activity.
The breakdown of calcareous algal filaments is an important source of lime mud,
which may be deposited in shallow lake waters or redeposited by density currents
into deeper parts of the lake. Cyanobacteria and green algae form stromatolite
bioherms and biostromes in shallow (less than 10m) lake waters: these carbonate
build-ups may form mats centimeters to meters thick or form thick coatings of
bedrock near lake margins. They form by the microbial and algal filaments trapping

and binding carbonate . A common feature of lakes with areas of active carbo- nate
deposition is coated grains. Green algae and cyanobacteria form oncoids .

Facies distributions in a freshwater lake with carbonate deposition.

Tufa (travertine) is an inorganic precipitate of calcium carbonate, which may form

sheets or mounds in lakes. Springs along the margins or in the floor of the lake can
be sites of quite spectacular buildups of tufa .

SALINE LAKES :
Saline lakes are perennial, supplied by rivers containing dissolved ions weathered
from bedrock and in a climatic setting where there are relatively high rates of
evaporation. The salinity may vary from 5g L 1 of solutes, which is brackish water,
to saline, close to the concentration of salts in marine waters , to hypersaline
waters , which have values well in excess of the concentrations in seawater.
The chemistry of saline lake waters is determined by the nature of the salts
dissolved from the bedrock of the catchment area of the river systems that supply
the lake. The bedrock geology varies from place to place, so the chemical
composition of every lake is therefore unique, unlike marine waters, which all have
the same composition of salts.
The main ions present in modern saline lake waters are the cations sodium, calcium
and magnesium and the carbonate, chloride and sulphate anions. The balance
between the concentrations of different ions determines the minerals formed and
three main saline lake types are recognised according to the composition of the
brines (ion-rich waters) in them .
Organisms in saline lakes are very restricted in variety but large quantities of bluegreen algae and bacteria may bloom in the warm conditions. These form part of a
food chain that includes higher plants, worms, specialised crustaceans and birds
such as flamingoes which feed on them. Organic productivity may be high enough
to result in sedimentary successions that contain both evaporite minerals and black

organic-rich shales. Seasonal temperature variations in permanent saline lakes

result in a fine layering. This is due to direct precipitation of calcium carbonate as
aragonite needles in the hot summer to form white laminae, which alternate with
darker laminae formed by clastic input when sediment influx is greater in the winter.

Three general types of saline lake can be distinguished on the basis of their
chemistry.

EPHEMERAL LAKES
Large bodies of water that periodically dry out are probably best described as
ephemeral lakes, although the term playa lake is also commonly used .
They occur in semiarid and arid environments where the rainfall is low and the rate
of evaporation is high.
Many desert areas are subject to highly irregular rainfall with long periods of dry
conditions interrupted by intense rainfall that may occur only every few years or
tens of years. After rainfall in the catchment area, the rivers become active and
flash floods supply water and sediment to the basin centre where it ponds to form a
lake. Once the lake has formed, particles suspended in the water will start to
deposit and form a layer of fine-grained muddy sediment . Evaporation of the water
body gradually reduces its volume and the area of the lake starts to shrink, leaving
areas of margin exposed where desiccation cracks may form in the mud as it dries
out. With further evaporation the ion concentration in the water starts to increase to
the point where precipitation of minerals occurs.
Ephemeral lake deposits occur in arid environments and are therefore likely to be
associated with other facies formed in these settings: these will include aeolian

sand flat and dune deposits, alluvial fan facies and material deposited by flash
floods from ephemeral rivers.

When an ephemeral lake receives an influx of water and sediment, mud is

deposited from suspension to form a thin bed that is overlain by evaporite minerals
as the water evaporates. Repetitions of this process create a series of couplets of
mudstone and evaporite.

CONTROLS ON LACUSTRINE DEPOSITION :

The characteristics of the deposits of lacustrine environments are controlled by
factors that control the depth and size of the basin , the sediment supply to the lake
and the balance between water supply and loss through evaporation.
If the climate is humid a lake will be hydrologically open, with water flowing both in
and out of it. Such lakes can be considered to be overfilled , and their deposits
are characterised by accumulation both at the margins, The lake level remains

constant, so there is no evidence of fluctuations in water depth under these

condition .
A balanced fill lake is one where the fluvial input is approximately balanced by the
loss through eva- poration. These lakes are sensitive to variations in the climate .
The area of the lake will contract, shifting the lake shoreline towards the basin
centre and leaving a peripheral area exposed to subaerial conditions where
desiccation cracks may form. . A fall in the water level will also bring parts of the
lake floor that were previously below the wave base into shallower water where
wave ripples rework the sedi- ment. These changes will be reversed if the climate
reverts to wetter and/or cooler conditions, as the lake level rises and the lake
margin is reflooded.
Saline and ephemeral lakes are underfilled

The rate of sediment supply is significant in all lacustrine environments. If the rate
of deposition of clastic , carbonate and evaporite deposits is greater than the rate of
basin subsidence the lake basin will gradually fill.
In overfilled lake settings this will result in a change from lacustrine to fluvial
deposition as the river waters no longer pond in the lake but instead flow straight
through the former lake area with channel and overbank deposits accumulating.
Balanced fill and underfilled basins will also gradually fill with sediment, sometimes
to the level of the sill such that they also become areas of fluvial deposition.

LIFE IN LAKES AND FOSSILS IN LACUSTRINE

DEPOSITS :
Fresh water lakes may be rich in life with a large number of organisms, but they are
of a limited number of species and genera when compared with an assemblage
from a shallow marine environment. Fauna commonly found in lake deposits include
gastropods, bivalves, ostracods and arthropods, sometimes occur ring in
monospecific assemblages, that is, all organ isms belong to the same species.
Some organisms, such as the brine shrimp arthropods, are tolerant of saline
conditions and may flourish in perennial saline lake environments.
Algae and cyanobacteria are an important compo- nent of the ecology of lakes and
also have sedimento- logical significance. A common organism found in lake
deposits are charophytes , algae belonging to the Chlorophyta , which are seen in

many ancient lacustrine sediments in the form of calcareous encrusted stems and
spherical reproductive bodies.
Cold, sediment-starved lakes in mountainous or polar environments may be sites of
deposition of siliceous oozes . The origin of the silica is diatom phyto- plankton,
which can be very abundant in glacial lakes. These deposits are typically bright
white cherty beds that are called diatomites .