Ice Age Relic

Lake Abert is an unusual place. It lies in the desert of southeastern Oregon, a little north of Lakeview. It's highly alkaline; a somewhat rotten aroma pervades the shoreline. The country around the lake is quite dry, and it seems odd that such a large lake (15-20 miles long) can survive in the area.

But the lake is a remnant of a much larger body of water...Lake Chewaucan, an Ice Age inland sea that was several hundred feet deep and extended 30-40 miles to the west, to include present day Summer Lake. The climate of the region was much cooler and wetter than it is today, and rain and snowmelt generated many large lakes in the Great Basin. Now, 15-20 thousand years later, with the climate warming and drying, lakes like Abert and Goose (see previous post) are the last remnants of the vast Ice Age lakes that covered the region. They must have been beautiful, not all that different from todays Great Lakes. But, if current trends continue, most or all of the remnant lakes will probably be dry for the long term within a century or two.

Immediately to the east of Lake Abert lies the Abert Rim. It's the prominent cliff on the left of this picture. Southeast Oregon has had a turbulent geology. About 16 million years ago, the region was covered with a deep layer of basalt after lava spread across a huge area. Over the ages since, faulting split the basalt lands into blocks and tilted many of them; the block on which the lake lies has dropped about 2000 feet below the rim and its block. This pattern is evident throughout the region, which features several long ridges towering over adjacent lowlands, many of which contain remnant lakes.

On a day with clouds, the light and shadows on the lake change constantly. It's rather surreal, seeing such a large body of water in the desert. There are a lot of brine shrimp in the lake, which attract many birds for the feast.