| |
- Lake Tahoe is one of the clearest and most beautiful
large sub-alpine lakes in the world.
- It has a relatively small watershed (800 square kilometers,
including the lake) for the size of the lake surface (500
square kilometers).
- Lake Tahoe formed about 2 million years ago due to plate
tectonics and a volcanic dam at its north end. It lies
at an elevation of 6,225 feet.
- At 1,657 feet, Lake Tahoe is the 11th deepest
lake in the world. The average depth is 1,027 feet. It is 23
miles long at it´s longest and 12 miles wide at
it´s widest.
- 63 streams feed into Lake Tahoe; only one flows out
of it – the Truckee River.
- The lake was naturally clear before European-American
settlement, because its watershed filtered contaminants
such as sediments and nutrients before they entered the
lake.
- The lake was known only to the Washoe Indians until
General John Charles Fremont discovered it in 1844.
- Between 1870 and 1900, the forests of the basin were
heavily logged for use in mine shafts at the Comstock
Silver Lode. Today the forest is only 5 percent old-growth.
- Urbanization of the basin has eliminated 75 percent
of its marshes, 50 percent of its meadows, and 35 percent
of its stream zone habitats.
- In 2000, government census numbers showed that the
residential or year-round population at Lake Tahoe was
62,891 people.
- Millions of visitors come to Lake Tahoe, with 23 million
visitor-days per year.
- The primary cause for the loss in water clarity is
fine particles from both natural and human caused erosion.
- The growth of algae has increased about four-fold since
measurements were first taken in the lake 1950´s.
The lake is losing an average of over one foot of clarity
each year.
- The three main sources of new nutrients entering Lake
Tahoe are streams, groundwater, and direct atmospheric
deposition onto the lake surface.
|
