Mystery Lake on the Mountain, Bay of Quinte

What's this lake doing way above the water level of Lake Ontario?

Category:

Travel & Events

Tags:

• Bay
• of
• Quinte
• Lake
• on
• the
• mountain
• near
• Picton
• Ontario

[ripporter]

Thanks, I was really making fun of it being called a mystery - the ground does start sloping away before you get to the next road on the other side of the lake, so there must be some underground inflow. The sign at the lake said that the Mohawks have an oral tradition that the lake's waters were sparkling, suggesting that the waters had CO2 dissolved in it from passage under pressure through limestone. You can convert VOB to avi - see DVD rippers freeware.

[fundiebasher]

There is actually no 'mystery'. The lake does have higher surrounding land that drains into it, and there is little if any groundwater outflow, meaning that the level remains high. The formation itself is a collapsed doline, a former underground chamber with a partially fallen roof. I have canoed across it and the edge of the break is visible and sudden.

[ripporter]

@fundiebasher I've got to learn how to do a more obvious ironic tone in my comments.... maybe I should have done an on-camera and made air quotes when I said the words 'one mystery'.

I should correct myself and note that the lake is only about 62 metres above the level of Lake Ontario. Also the lake is probably getting some subterranean inflow - there is only higher ground on one side and the height of land line is quite close as you can see in the video.

[fundiebasher]

Sorry about that. I can detect a hint of humour in there. The topo maps of the area show more high ground than is apparent from a casual glance. I have video of an inflow at the west end of the lake, and there is a seasonal one in the southeast. If I copy it from my HiBand8 camera it comes out on DVD as a VOB file, which Windows can't work with, so I have no way of posting it. I'm working on a small presentation about the lake for the Association for Science and Reason, formerly Skeptics Canada.