Onyx River Bartley Stream Clark Stream Meserve Stream
Primary outflows
none
Basin countries
Ross Dependency
Max. length
8 km (5.0 mi)
Max. width
2 km (1.2 mi)
Surface area
5.2 km2 (2.0 sq mi)
Average depth
30.8 m (101 ft)
Max. depth
75 m (246 ft)
Water volume
160 million cubic metres (130,000 acre⋅ft)
Surface elevation
143 metres (469 ft)
Settlements
Vanda Station Lake Vanda Hut
References
[1]
Lake Vanda is a lake in Wright Valley, Victoria Land, Ross Dependency, Antarctica. The lake is 5 km (3.1 mi) long and has a maximum depth of 69 m (226 ft).[2] On its shore, New Zealand maintained Vanda Station from 1968 to 1995. At depths of greater than approximately 50 meters,[3] Lake Vanda is a hypersaline lake with a salinity more than ten times that of seawater[4] and more than the salinity of the Dead Sea. Lake Vanda is also meromictic, which means that the deeper waters of the lake don't mix with the shallower waters.[5] There are three distinct layers of water ranging in temperature from 23 °C (73 °F) on the bottom to the middle layer of 7 °C (45 °F) and the upper layer ranges from 4–6 °C (39–43 °F).[6] It is only one of the many saline lakes in the ice-free valleys of the Transantarctic Mountains. The longest river of Antarctica, Onyx River, flows west, inland, into Lake Vanda. There is a meteorological station at the mouth of the river.
Ice-covered Lake Vanda with Onyx River in the right foreground
The lake is covered by a transparent ice sheet 3.5–4 metres (11–13 ft) year-round, though melting in late December forms a moat out to approximately 50 metres (160 ft) from the shore. The surface of the ice is not covered with snow and is "deeply rutted with cracks and melt lines".[6] During the colder months, the moat refreezes.
While no species of fish live in Lake Vanda or the Onyx River, microscopic life, such as cyanobacteria algal blooms, have been recorded. Due to the concerns over impact to the natural environment that may occur during research, scientific diving operations are limited to work in the upper layer (above 30 metres (98 ft)) and remotely operated underwater vehicle use is not allowed.[6]
^Lyons, W.; Priscu, J. (2014). "Lake Descriptions". mcm.lternet.edu. Environmental Data Initiative. doi:10.6073/pasta/7d9fec7af7c424ec82eae5f7e9df1c3b. Retrieved 2021-03-23.
^Mathez, Edmond A. (July–August 2005). "Cold Fire". Natural History.
^Castendyk, Devin N. (September 2016). "Lake Vanda: A sentinel for climate change in the McMurdo Sound Region of Antarctica". Global and Planetary Change.
^Priscu, J. C.; Priscu, L. R.; Vincent, Warwick F.; Howard-Williams, Clive (1981). "Photosynthate distribution by microplankton in permanently ice-covered Antarctic desert lakes". Limnol. Oceanogr. 32 (1): 260–270. doi:10.4319/lo.1987.32.1.0260. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-07-04.
^Gibson, John A.E. (1999). "The meromictic lakes and stratified marine basins of the Vestfold Hills, East Antarctica". Antarctic Science. 11 (2): 175–192. Bibcode:1999AntSc..11..175G. doi:10.1017/S0954102099000243. S2CID 129631579.
^ abcMercer, Steve (2000). "Antarctic lake diving with the semi-closed rebreather". In: Hallock and French (Eds). Diving for Science...2000. Proceedings of the 20th Annual Scientific Diving Symposium. American Academy of Underwater Sciences. Archived from the original on 2012-09-02. Retrieved 2011-01-06.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
LakeVanda is a lake in Wright Valley, Victoria Land, Ross Dependency, Antarctica. The lake is 5 km (3.1 mi) long and has a maximum depth of 69 m (226 ft)...
Onyx River, the longest river in Antarctica, Lake Brownworth, the origin of the Onyx River, and LakeVanda, which is fed by the Onyx River. Its southwestern...
the Wright Valley from Wright Lower Glacier and Lake Brownworth at the foot of the glacier to LakeVanda, during the few months of the Antarctic summer...
subglacial lakes that are hypersaline. In Antarctica, there are larger hypersaline water bodies, lakes in the McMurdo Dry Valleys such as LakeVanda with salinity...
Vanda Station was an Antarctic research base in the western highlands (Victoria Land) of the Ross Dependency, specifically on the shore of LakeVanda...
hypersaline lake in the western end of Wright Valley (South Fork), Victoria Land, Antarctica, 9 kilometres (5.6 mi) west from LakeVanda. It is wedged...
waters of LakeVanda, Antarctica". Limnology and Oceanography. 65 (3): 569–581. doi:10.1002/lno.11327. Solute Balance at Abert and Summer Lakes, South-Central...
Zambia Lake Malawi, located between Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania LakeVanda in Ross Dependency 21 lakes, including Organic Lake in Vestfold Hills Lake Shira...
Lake Karum Lake Mackay Lake Natron Lake Paliastomi Lake Pontchartrain Lake Texoma Lake Torrens Lake Tuz Lake Tyrrell Lake Urmia Lake Van LakeVanda Larnaca...
groundwater from a rock glacier and remains unfrozen throughout the year. LakeVanda in Wright Valley has a perennial ice cover, the edges of which melt in...
it is one of the world's saltiest bodies of water, though LakeVanda in Antarctica (35%), Lake Assal in Djibouti (34.8%), Lagoon Garabogazköl in the Caspian...
Parochlus Lake Penny Lake Lake Pewe LakeVandaLake Vida Lake Vostok Lake Whillans Pangong Tso Lake Baikal – Lake Baikal is located in Siberia in southeastern...
within the lake. LakeVanda in Eastern Antarctica Lake Bonney in Victoria Land Lake Vostok in Antarctica Lakes portal Dimictic lake Holomictic lake Meromictic...
of all is small Don Juan Pond. Lake Vida (Victoria Valley) Lake Thomas (Victoria Valley) LakeVanda (Wright Valley) Lake Brownworth (Wright Valley) (freshwater)...
LakeVandaLake Vida Lake Eyre Basin (Queensland, New South Wales, Northern Territory, South Australia), which drains into the highly variable Lake Eyre...
made studies of lakes and streams in Taylor Valley and Wright Valley, including a geochemical analysis of the Onyx River and LakeVanda with Donald E....
minimum during the rest of the year, unless it has major lake storage, such as the Rhône after the Lake Geneva or the Baker River, which is shown below. Mader...
Agusan del Norte. The name of the lake is a Visayan word mainit, which means "hot".[better source needed] Fire orchid (Vanda hookeriana) Narra tree (Pterocarpus...
Mycological studies of the Antarctic fungi. Part. 2. Mycoflora of LakeVanda, an ice-free lake". Antarct. Rec. 28: 23–32. Liu Y, Zou Z, Hu Z, Wang W, Xiong...
metres: Lake Hauroko: 462 and ~117. Lake Manapouri: 444 and 149. Lake Te Anau: 425 and ~169. Lake Wakatipu: 420 and 130. Lake Hāwea: 392 and ~101. Lake Wānaka:...
United States Antarctic Project (United States ArmyP) for four seasons at LakeVanda in the 1990s. 77°26′00″S 161°30′38″E / 77.433306°S 161.510497°E / -77...
Lake VandaLakeVanda New Zealand n/a Summer refuge Open 77°31′20″S 161°41′00″E / 77.522143°S 161.683400°E / -77.522143; 161.683400 Lake Vida Lake Vida...
in the installation of the VNDA seismograph station at Bull Pass, near LakeVanda, in the early 1990s. "Anderson Scarp". Geographic Names Information System...
the dry valleys of Antarctica, examining the thermal structures of LakeVanda and Lake Bonney. Likens was co-founder in 1963 of a group with F. Herbert...
Global Information
Ross Dependency