It’s easy enough to find the lowest point of dry land on a continent. But this doesn’t seem very important to me, because it’s usually just a consequence of being in a dry climate. (Otherwise they’d be under water). It’s also easy to find the deepest lake in each continent, but that’s not what I’m interested in right now. How to explain? Let’s say all the inland waters on all the continents evaporated. What would the lowest points be then? I have compiled a preliminary list by checking some of the likely suspects. Corrections are appreciated.[ul]Asia: Lake Baikal’s bottom is 1165 meters below sea level. I also checked the Dead Sea and Issyk-kul.
Europe: The Caspian Sea’s bottom is 1053 meters below sea level.
Africa: Lake Tanganyika’s bottom is 690 meters below sea level. I also checked Lake Malawi. I couldn’t find a depth for Lake Assal, but I doubt it’s deep enough.
North America: Lake Superior’s bottom is 210 meters below sea level. I also checked the other Great Lakes, the Salton Sea, Crater Lake, Seneca Lake, Cayuga Lake, and Lake Champlain, but none of them was lower.
South America: a tough one. The lowest point of land is near Bahia Blanca, Argentina, 42 meters below sea level. I couldn’t think of any lakes that would make likely suspects.
Australia: Lake Eyre’s bottom is around 22 meters below sea level. There may well be a lake with a surface above sea level whose bottom is lower
I didn’t bother with Antarctica.[/ul]Corrections and suggestions are appreciated. I’m especially uncertain about S. America and Australia, but any of the others could be wrong too.
I like this question … doesn’t seem like there’s a lot of research on it yet. A possibly useful site (I’m sure there are others) is this one with a database of lake information :
(Unfortunately clicking on some of the maps didn’t work for me.)
As for N. America, I have a feeling the winner will be in northern Canada. For an updated entry, the Great Bear Lake has a listed altitude of 186 m and max. depth of 446 m, putting its bottom at 260 m BSL.
Just hitting some points on the S. America map, I found
Lago Llanquihe near the coast of Chile : alt. 51 m, max. depth 317 m = 266 m BSL
Doesn’t seem to be many deep lakes in Australia. I think Lake Eyre may qualify, and have the distinction of being the lowest dry and wet point there.
I think Antarctica might be interesting. Lots of places say that it has the lowest point of land beneath the ice (though I couldn’t find out what depth it is), but if you remove all the ice, the land would probably rise up above sea level, so the point might be hard to decide.
Absolutely no disrespect intended - one of the main points of this type of message board is pursuit of knowledge for knowledge’s sake - but what value might be derived from understanding this? Is it just to understand the superlatives for this category, or can it be used to yield deeper insight?..
Says who??? And even if true, it remains only one of the main points.
The main point to the message board is to allow people to comment on posts Cecil and his staff make. The General Questions forum grew out of the desire to ask Cecil inane questions for his review. Among the sort of drivel usually posted here (a lot of which consists of things easily discovered with a quick look at an encyclopedia), this hardly seems out of step with the purpose of the forum.
Of course, with all of ten posts, WordMan is unlikely to qualify as an expert on the subject, and makes one think of bridge-dwelling creatures…
What’s your problem? The guy’s just asking, innocently, if there’s any practical application of this knowledge. He’s not attacking anyone, and he’s acknowledging that the SDMB is just fine for non-practical knowledge.
Lighten up. Take a deep breath and read WordMan’s post again. I think a retraction is in order.
Ditto cmk’s post. WordMan merely asked if this question had deeper (pun only slightly intended) implications, or was just the usual drivel we all wonder about, like the Chinese jumping off of stools and knocking the earth out of its orbit. And he politely acknowledged that, should there be no deeper meaning behind the question, that was fine, too.
Lake Eyre is very dry for most of the time. It only fills during the occasional desert rains. It’s the kind of place where rich boys try to break land speed records in rocket cars and such.
If you couldn’t tell that the post from WordMan was critical of the OP, with that lovely dripping tone of false innocent concern that really annoys you when done in person, you’re not doing a very good job of interpreting the meaning behind the words. Anyone who starts a statement out with a disclaimer about disrespect intends exactly the disrespect being disclaimed; if they didn’t intend it, they wouldn’t think the disclaimer needed.
So, no, no retraction. I stand by the post:
There is no reason not to post such a question here.
WordMan’s post, to the extent it is a critique of the concept of posting such questions in this forum, seems pretty silly coming from someone with little experience in posting here, and reminds me very much of an attempt to troll for reaction (which I have to admit he did get from me).
Simply to avoid this deteriorating further, I will simply say this: sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. I didn’t mean any disrespect, but was curious as to the value of knowing the lowest lake bottoms (for what’s its worth, I still am curious - as someone not steeped in geophysics, I am curious as to the application of the knowledge - maybe I could’ve phrased it better, but it seemed reasonable to ask in this post). Since I am new to posting on the board (as you have so thoughtfully pointed out time and again, DSYoungEsq), I wanted to be careful and polite in my phrasing. There was nothing “dripping” off the statement - it was what it was. (For that matter, I have no idea what “trolling for a reaction” even is, but thank you for explaining where the “bridge-dwelling creature” reference must have come from in your original reply.
eeeesh.
Sorry to have inadvertantly been part of distracting this thread from its intent.
I second WordMan’s query–why do you ask about lake depths? Are you a geography buff/scuba diver/employee of the Dept. of the Interior? Or was it just the usual reason most of us post to the SDMB: idle curiosity?
I don’t think this will really change the outcome, but should one consider lakes that are in caves? e.g. Lechuguilla Cave in New Mexico extends to approximately 500 m below the surface if memory serves, but since the surface is probably around 1200 m above sea level, even if there were a lake at the bottom of the cave, that lake wouldn’t be a candidate.