General Carrera Lake

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General Carrera Lake
Buenos Aires Lake
Lake Buenos Aires
Lago Gral. Carrera 01.JPG
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General Carrera Lake in the Aysén Region
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General Carrera Lake
Location Lago Buenos Aires Department, Santa Cruz Province, Argentina / General Carrera Province, Aysén del General Carlos Ibáñez del Campo Region, Chile, in Patagonia
Coordinates 46°26′15″S71°42′54″W / 46.43750°S 71.71500°W / -46.43750; -71.71500 [1]
Type Moraine dammed
Primary inflows Soler, Los Antiguos, Jeinemeni, Ibáñez, San Martín, Delta
Primary outflows Bertrand Lake and then Baker River (Pacific Ocean) Deseado River (Atlantic Ocean)
Catchment area 14,861 km2 (5,738 sq mi)
Basin  countriesArgentina, Chile
Surface area1,850 km2 (710 sq mi)
Average depth400 m (1,300 ft)
Max. depth586 m (1,923 ft)
Water volume740 km3 (180 cu mi)
Shore length1707 km (439 mi)
Surface elevation217 m (712 ft)
Frozennever
Settlements Chile Chico, Puerto Ingeniero Ibáñez, Puerto Guadal, Los Antiguos
References [1]
General Carrera Lake
1 Shore length is not a well-defined measure.

General Carrera Lake (Chilean part, officially renamed in 1959) [2] or Lake Buenos Aires (Argentine part) is a deep lake located in Patagonia and shared by Argentina and Chile. Both names are internationally accepted, while the autochthonous name of the lake is Chelenko, which means "stormy waters" in Aonikenk. [3] Another historical name is Coluguape from Mapuche, a derivative of this name is applied to Colhué Huapí Lake after Argentine explorer Francisco Moreno reached this lake in 1876 conflating it with Coluguape (General Carrera Lake). [4]

Contents

The lake is of glacial origin and is surrounded by the Andes mountain range. The lake drains to the Pacific Ocean on the west through the Baker River. During the last glaciation the lake drained to the Atlantic through Deseado River. [4]

The weather in this area of Chile and Argentina is generally cold and humid. But the lake itself has a sunny microclimate, a weather pattern enjoyed by the few settlements along the lake, such as Puerto Guadal, Fachinal, Mallín Grande, Puerto Murta, Puerto Río Tranquilo, Puerto Sánchez, Puerto Ingeniero Ibáñez and Chile Chico in Chile, and Los Antiguos and Perito Moreno in Argentina.

The area near the coast of the lake was first inhabited by criollos and European immigrants between 1900 and 1925. In 1971 and 1991, eruptions of the Hudson Volcano severely affected the local economy, especially that of sheep farming. A car ferry operates between Puerto Ingeniero Ibáñez and Chile Chico in the Chilean sector of the lake. The lake is known as a trout and salmon fishing destination.

Area

The lake has a surface of 1,850 km2 (710 sq mi) of which 970 square kilometres (370 sq mi) are in the Chilean Aysén del General Carlos Ibáñez del Campo Region, and 880 square kilometres (340 sq mi) in the Argentine Santa Cruz Province, making it the biggest lake in Chile, and the fourth largest in Argentina. In its western basin, Lake Gen. Carrera has 586 m (1,923 ft) maximum depth. [5]

Geology

The lake occupies a continental-scale graben formed by SWS-ENE normal faults that have resulted in down-dropping the bottom of the lake to 350 meters (1,150 ft) below mean sea level. [6] Preservation of younger lithostratigraphic units within the graben form reverse stratigraphy with older units exposed at higher topographic elevations to the south. The graben channeled mountain glaciers which formed terminal moraine helping to modify the present-day shape of the lake. The tectonic activity that formed the depression can be inferred to subduction of the triple joint that has occurred over the past 20 million years, as indicated by ripple marks in volcaniclastic sediments observed along the southern shoreline. There is some speculation on whether the tectonics and crustal heat flow in the lake area are influenced by the asthenospheric window that exists beneath the crust in this region of Patagonia. [7]

The Marble Caves, Marble Chapel, and Marble Cathedral are unusual geological formations located on the shoreline midway along the lake's length. They represent a group of caverns, columns, and tunnels formed in monoliths of marble. The Marble Caves have been formed by wave action over the last 6,200 years. [8]

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Patagonia is a geographical region that encompasses the southern end of South America, governed by Argentina and Chile. The region comprises the southern section of the Andes Mountains with lakes, fjords, temperate rainforests, and glaciers in the west and deserts, tablelands, and steppes to the east. Patagonia is bounded by the Pacific Ocean on the west, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and many bodies of water that connect them, such as the Strait of Magellan, the Beagle Channel, and the Drake Passage to the south.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Geography of Argentina</span> Geographic features of Argentina

The geography of Argentina is heavily diverse, consisting of the Andes Mountains, pampas, and various rivers and lakes. Bordered by the Andes in the west and the South Atlantic Ocean to the east, its neighbouring countries are Chile to the west, Bolivia and Paraguay to the north, and Brazil and Uruguay to the northeast.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Río Negro Province</span> Province of Argentina

Río Negro is a province of Argentina, located in northern Patagonia. Neighboring provinces are from the south clockwise Chubut, Neuquén, Mendoza, La Pampa and Buenos Aires. To the east lies the Atlantic Ocean.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Santa Cruz Province, Argentina</span> Province of Argentina

Santa Cruz Province is a province of Argentina, located in the southern part of the country, in Patagonia. It borders Chubut Province to the north, and Chile to the west and south, with an Atlantic coast on its east. Santa Cruz is the second-largest province of the country, and the least densely populated in mainland Argentina.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aysén Region</span> Region of Chile

The Aysén del General Carlos Ibáñez del Campo Region, often shortened to Aysén Region or Aisén, is one of Chile's 16 first order administrative divisions. Although the third largest in area, the region is Chile's most sparsely populated region with a population of 102,317 as of 2017. The capital of the region is Coihaique, the region's former namesake. The region's current namesake is the former President of Chile, General Carlos Ibáñez del Campo

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nahuel Huapi Lake</span> Lake in Patagonia

Nahuel Huapi Lake is an Andean lake in the lake region of northern Patagonia between the provinces of Río Negro and Neuquén, in Argentina. The lake has a northwest-southeast elongated shape and complex geography with several branches, peninsulas and islands. The city of Bariloche is on the southern shore of the lake and the town of Villa La Angostura lies on its northwestern shores. The lake is wholly inside Nahuel Huapi National Park. It is one of the largest lakes in northern Patagonia. It is drained by Limay River and it is part of the watershed of Negro River which discharges into the South Atlantic.

Chile Chico is a town in General Carrera Province, Aisén Region, Patagonia, Chile. It is located on the south shore of General Carrera Lake. Chile Chico, which has around 3,000 inhabitants, is the eponymous capital of the commune and capital of the General Carrera Province of the Aysén Region.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">O'Higgins/San Martín Lake</span> Lake in Argentina and Chile

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Baker River (Chile)</span> River in Chile, Argentina

The Baker River is a river located in the Aysén del General Carlos Ibáñez del Campo Region of the Chilean Patagonia. It is Chile's largest river in terms of volume of water. The river flows out of Bertrand Lake, which is fed by General Carrera Lake. It runs along the east side of the Northern Patagonian Ice Field and empties into the Pacific Ocean, near the town of Caleta Tortel. The river forms a delta, dividing into two major arms, of which only the northernmost one is navigable.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ibáñez River</span> River in Chile

The Ibáñez River is a river of Chile located in the Aysén del General Carlos Ibáñez del Campo Region. It has its origin in the skirts of Hudson volcano and flows south-east through the Andes into the General Carrera Lake. The river borders the south side of Cerro Castillo National Reserve, home to Cerro Castillo.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ferrocarriles Patagónicos</span> Former Argentine State-owned railway company (1908–1948)

Ferrocarriles Patagónicos was an Argentine State-owned railway company that built and operated several rail lines in Patagonia region. FP were part of the Argentine State Railway created in 1909 during the presidency of José Figueroa Alcorta.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lake Musters and Lake Colhué Huapí</span>

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The Magallanes Basin or Austral Basin is a major sedimentary basin in southern Patagonia. The basin covers a surface of about 170,000 to 200,000 square kilometres and has a NNW-SSE oriented shape. The basin is bounded to the west by the Andes mountains and is separated from the Malvinas Basin to the east by the Río Chico-Dungeness High. The basin evolved from being an extensional back-arc basin in the Mesozoic to being a compressional foreland basin in the Cenozoic. Rocks within the basin are Jurassic in age and include the Cerro Toro Formation. Three ages of the SALMA classification are defined in the basin; the Early Miocene Santacrucian from the Santa Cruz Formation and Friasian from the Río Frías Formation and the Pleistocene Ensenadan from the La Ensenada Formation.

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Patagonia Rebelde was the name given to the uprising and violent suppression of a rural workers' strike in the Argentine province of Santa Cruz in Patagonia between 1920 and 1922. The uprising was put down by Colonel Héctor Benigno Varela's 10th Cavalry Regiment of the Argentine Army under the orders of President Hipólito Yrigoyen. Approximately 300-1,500 rural workers were shot and killed by the 10th Cavalry Regiment in the course of the operations, many of them executed by firing squads after surrendering. Most of the executed were Spanish and Chilean workers who had sought refuge in Argentina's Patagonia after their strike in the city of Puerto Natales in southern Chile in 1919 was crushed by the Chilean authorities, at the cost of four carabiniers killed and the offices of their union were burned by the civilians, policemen and the militaries in Punta Arenas on July 27, 1920. At least two Argentine soldiers, three local policemen and a number of ranch owners and their relatives also died during the strife. According to the versions well publicized by the army and the landowners, several of the captured women were raped in the uprising as the rebel forces fought for control of the territory. These versions have been widely discredited. The most detailed narrative of these events is that by Osvaldo Bayer, summarized in English by Bruce Chatwin in 1976.

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The Lago Colhué Huapí Formation is a Late Cretaceous geologic formation of the Chubut Group in the Golfo San Jorge Basin in Patagonia, Argentina. The formation, named after Lake Colhué Huapí, is overlain by the Salamanca Formation of the Río Chico Group and in some areas by the Laguna Palacios Formation.

Casimiro Biguá was a 19th-century Tehuelche cacique in Patagonia. He opposed the Chilean colonization of the Strait of Magellan and in the 1860s he entered an alliance with Argentine authorities. In a bid to establish Argentine sovereignty over the strait Argentine "ad-hoc agent" Luis Piedra Buena brought Biguá to Buenos Aires where met President Bartolomé Mitre and was declared lieutenant colonel of the Argentine Army and granted a salary accordingly. In 1866 he signed a treaty with Argentine authorities where the Tehuelche were recognized as Argentine citizens and Argentine sovereignty up to the strait of Magellan was declared. The influence of Casimiro Biguá in political affairs declined in the late 1860s.

References

  1. 1 2 Earth Info, earth-info.nga.mil webpage: "GNS: Country Files". Archived from the original on 2012-05-04. Retrieved 2010-06-27.
  2. "Ley N.º 13.375: Crea y fija los limites de los departamentos de Palena, Aysén, Coyhaique y Chile Chico y las de sus respectivas comunas-subdelegaciones". Ministerio del Interior de Chile. 1959-09-09.
  3. Prudencio Vergara, Guillermo (2019-05-06). "Una "fiebre del oro" junto al mayor lago de la Patagonia" [A "gold fever" along the major lake in Patagonia]. El País (in Spanish). Chile Chico. Retrieved 2021-12-29.
  4. 1 2 Melo, Walter D.; Scordo, Facundo; Perillo, Gerardo M. E.; Píccolo, M. Cintia (2017). "Identificación del lago "Coluguape" en la cartografía histórica (1775-1898): Su vinculación con el lago Buenos aires-General Carrera y el sistema lacustre Musters-Colhue Huapi" [Identification of the "Coluguape" lake in historical cartography (1775-1898): Its connection to the Buenos Aires-General Carrera lake and Musters- Colhue Huapi lake system]. Magallania (in Spanish). 45 (1): 15–33. doi: 10.4067/S0718-22442017000100015 . hdl: 11336/27464 .
  5. Murdie et al. 1999, Geo-Marine Letters 18:315-320.
  6. B. Scalabrino, et al., A morphotectonic analysis of central Patagonian Cordillera: Negative inversion of the Andean belt over a buried spreading center?, TECTONICS, VOL. 29, TC2010, doi:10.1029/2009TC002453, 2010
  7. Lagabrielle, Yves; Suárez, Manuel; Rossello, Eduardo A.; Hérail, Gérard; Martinod, Joseph; Régnier, Marc; de la Cruz, Rita (2004). "Neogene to Quaternary tectonic evolution of the Patagonian Andes at the latitude of the Chile Triple Junction". Tectonophysics. 385 (1–4): 211–241. Bibcode:2004Tectp.385..211L. doi:10.1016/j.tecto.2004.04.023.
  8. "The Marble Caves (Cavernas de Mármol)". Wondermondo. 2012-01-10.