Peach Lake: natural asphalt in the Caribbean. Amazing Peach Lake (10 photos)
Located Peach Lake, which is a major source of natural bitumen.
Interesting name
Originally translated from in English the name of Peach Lake - Pitch Lake means bituminous lake. In some cases, it is referred to as Peach Lake asphalt lake.
Where is Peach Lake located?
A bituminous lake was found in its southwestern part. Near the outlandish reservoir is the village of La Brea.
Lake Peach Lake on the map looks relatively small, because its area is only about 40 hectares, but studies have shown that average depth lakes are about 80 meters, and this is a lot for any body of water.
Indian Legend of Peach Lake
Indigenous people tell a legend, according to which, many hundreds of years ago, the Chima Indians lived on the site of the lake. Once, after a grand victory over an enemy tribe, a feast was arranged, during which the happy Indians cooked and ate many colorful hummingbirds, sacred birds of Trinidad.
According to the beliefs of the Indians, hummingbirds are considered the spirits of their ancestors due to their small weight and size. And in punishment, the terrible gods cursed and broke the earth and caused a stream of tar that covered the entire village and its inhabitants.
Of course, today this legend causes only a smile, since countless numbers of hummingbirds flutter on the island.
History of Peach Lake
The discoverer of the asphalt lake from the Old World was the navigator Walter Raleigh. He saw what the Indians impregnated their canoes with, and began to use the bitumen of Peach Lake for the resin work of the plating of their ships.
Geologists believe that the formation of the lake was due to a deep fault in the earth's crust and partial subsidence of one fault under the Caribbean Plate in the area Antilles in particular Barbados. Although a full study of the lake has not been carried out, it is believed that at the bottom it is slowly replenished with oil along the fault line. After that, the light components evaporate over time, while the heavy and viscous fractions remain.
In the middle of the 19th century, it was discovered that the bituminous Peach Lake could be used for construction and road work. The first street to be covered with natural asphalt was Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington. And later they covered the alley leading to Buckingham Palace in London. And since then, the material has been used in the construction of bridges and highways, it is surprisingly viscous and homogeneous, does not melt at 40-degree heat and does not crack at 25-degree frost. Natural asphalt withstands severe loads, which is why many runways in the world are made from it.
Why is Peach Lake famous?
It is considered the largest natural reservoir of asphalt. Similar "reservoirs" were later discovered in California, Venezuela, Turkmenistan and other places.
The surface of the lake is oily and viscous, at its depth there is a constant movement and chemical processes. A very interesting property of bituminous pits is the ability to absorb and return objects, even after millennia.
On Peach Lake, some interesting artifacts: part of the skeleton of a giant sloth that became extinct in these places more than 6 thousand years ago, a mastodon tooth, some items of Indian tribes. most interesting find considered the oldest tree that surfaced in 1928. Before it again plunged into bitumen, they managed to make a saw cut from it, according to which it was determined that the tree was about 4 thousand years old.
Peach Lake today
Even today, few people know that in Trinidad there is a lake consisting of oil. Nowadays, asphalt is actively mined on Lake Peach Lake; several tens of thousands of tons of material are mined from it every year. The reserves of the lake, according to experts, are about 6 million tons, and since they are considered renewable, the bitumen will last at least another 400 years. Almost all of the produced asphalt is exported.
In addition to its industrial significance, the lake is a local attraction; about 20 thousand people come here every year.
Oil beauty
It is interesting, but in the folds of the lake after the rain, water is visible for a long time, playing with oil films with a bright rainbow. It even has several applied islands with plants. A truck can also drive along the coastal surface, but if it stops, it will immediately begin to sink. Each pit, after extraction, levels off in about a week, gradually decreases and disappears without a trace. Therefore, do not underestimate physical processes and go far from the coast, especially on fresh spots.
And swimming in accumulated rainwater is not always safe. In general, you can’t ride a canoe on Peach Lake either.
How to get to the lake?
Local licensed tour operators organized excursions by jeep to the lake and back. The recommended hours for visiting Peach Lake are from 9 am to 5 pm, smoking is prohibited near the lake due to great content sulfur and methane in the air. It is necessary to take care of comfortable shoes and keep up with the guide, he will guide you hiking trail to the most interesting places.
Near the lake is information center, here you can buy booklets about the bituminous lake and souvenirs, or take a guide if you want to walk on your own.
26.09.2014
There are many amazing and fascinating sights on the island of Trinidad, but one of the most impressive is considered to be the asphalt lake Peach Lake in the southwest of the island, which consists of a dark gray mass. This viscous oil component, after the condensation of volatile substances, turns into real asphalt, which can later be used in road repair work.
This lake is located on an area of 46 hectares, and maximum depth it is up to 90 meters. Every year this lake supplies mankind with 150 thousand tons of asphalt. The reserves of this source of liquid asphalt are estimated at 6 million tons. So, at the current level of extraction of this raw material, the lake will be able to renew its resources for the next 400 years. This reservoir of natural asphalt was discovered in 1595 by Walter Raleigh, who began to use this black liquid to grind the wooden lining of ships.
Thank God, the lake is not depleted, but is constantly replenished with oil from a fault in the earth's crust. Oil is moving up and has found a loophole between cracks in the Caribbean continental plate near Barbados. The place where a new batch of oil accumulates is called "Mother Lake". Bravo, the oil is coming, but since the beginning of the development, the level of this lake has already dropped by half a meter. But nothing lasts forever and someday the source will dry up, who will not agree? The extracted high-quality natural material is exported, as a rule, to China, the USA and the UK. So, in the UK, the Pall Mall alley, which is directed to Buckingham Palace, is paved with asphalt from Peach Lake.
You can safely walk along the edge of the lake - it freezes. It is not recommended to stand in the same place for a long time, otherwise you can get very bogged down, like those prehistoric mastodons and sloths, whose skeletons were found by archaeologists in this natural trap. Naturally, swimming in this mud pond is prohibited. Tourists are attracted by this natural phenomenon, and every year more than 20 thousand people leave their traces here.
There is a legend that the Chima Indian tribe lived on the site of this lake, which was at enmity with its neighbors. Once, after another battle, they managed to put their rivals to flight and seize their lands. The winners arranged a glorious feast and celebrated this event with an excellent meal. The main dish was sacred hummingbirds. To celebrate, the tribe managed to forget that the birds are the spirits of their dead ancestors. For this, the spirits opened the ground and released their anger to the surface in the form of a black tar lake, which swallowed up all the inhabitants and the village itself. In addition to skeletons from the Pleistocene, several objects from the Indian culture were found to confirm this.
Peach Lake, located in the southwest of Trinidad, is famous for being one of the natural "deposits" of asphalt. This is one of the largest bitumen pits in the world, with an area of about 40 hectares and a depth of about 80 m. A characteristic feature of Peach Lake is that objects that somehow fall on the surface of the lake gradually go to the bottom, and those that have lain for several centuries among molten asphalt may occasionally float to the surface.
The unique lake was formed due to the fact that thousands of years ago in the area Caribbean a tectonic fault occurred, and oil from deep places births rose to the surface. In fact, natural asphalt is nothing more than a mixture of clay, water and oil.
Peach Lake was discovered by Walter Raleigh in 1595, the locals showed the Englishman the "black gold" lake, which they called Tierra de Brea. Initially, the resourceful European used bitumen to grind the wooden plating of ships. Having made a second expedition to Trinidad, Walter Raleigh decided to transport natural asphalt for the construction of Westminster Bridge, which was timed to coincide with the opening of the Houses of Parliament. True, during transportation, part natural material simply melted, pretty dirty horses.
Industrial resource development mountain lake started in 1867. For all the time, about 10 million tons of asphalt were mined, the raw materials were used to build high-quality road surfaces not only in Trinidad and Tobago, but also on other islands of the Caribbean. In addition, the streets of more than fifty countries are paved with asphalt mined at Peach Lake, including the United States of America, England, India, Singapore, Egypt and Japan. According to experts, the lake contains about 6 million tons of asphalt, at the current rate of production it should be enough for about 400 years.
Peach Lake is gradually becoming popular tourist attraction- annually it is visited by about 20 thousand travelers. Some even try to swim in the lake, considering its water to be healing, because it has a high sulfur content.
Note that on the site Culturology.ru we have already written about other amazing lakes Oh. For example, about
Peach Lake - extraordinary place. It consists entirely of liquid bitumen. For this reason, Peach Lake is also called asphalt lake. Let us consider below in detail what kind of reservoir it is, what is its history and geographical location.
asphalt lake
Peach Lake is a one-of-a-kind body of water. As mentioned above, it contains liquid bitumen instead of water. That is why in translation from English its name means "bituminous lake". And bitumen itself is a tar-like substance and a mixture of hydrocarbons with their various derivatives. It is a natural resource. Bitumen also includes oil derivatives, and the product itself is divided into asphalts, asphaltenes, malts, etc. Interestingly, because of its properties, it cannot dissolve in water. But how did the bitumen end up in the lake?
The fact is that, as mentioned above, natural asphalt is a mineral that occurs in nature and can exist on its own, without human intervention. And it so happened that Peach Lake is just one big reservoir of bitumen that has burst out of the bowels of the earth. Nevertheless, it is considered a lake, despite the fact that it does not contain water at all.
Geography
There is an asphalt lake in Trinidad, in the southwest of the island. This place is also part of island nation Trinidad and Tobago, located in the Caribbean Sea (northeast South America). Interestingly, almost the entire population of the republic is concentrated on the island.
Peach Lake covers approximately 40 hectares. But its depth is as much as 80 meters, which is considered very deep even for ordinary lakes. Presumably Peach Lake was the result of a collision tectonic plates and is regularly replenished with substance from the very bowels of the earth. No one has studied the bottom of the lake, as it is virtually impossible, but it is assumed that there is oil at the very bottom, which constantly comes out there from deeper places. The light components evaporate, while the heavy ones remain. Peach Lake is the largest asphalt lake in the world, but nevertheless there are still such places on Earth. For example, in the well-known Dead Sea, in which, due to its salinity, one cannot drown, and where there is practically no life. Here, tar deposits are found in some places deep under water.
Story
The first person to discover an asphalt lake was the navigator Walter Raleigh. This happened in 1595. He noticed that the local Indians were treating their canoes with bitumen, and he also began to use the contents of Peach Lake to tar their ships.
In the XIX century, bitumen began to be used already for laying roads. To be precise, the extraction of resources began in 1857. Thus, the material is used today. And for the first time, one street was laid with this natural asphalt in the city of Washington. Bitumen was convenient and versatile in its strength and quality: roads made from it did not melt when extreme heat and did not crack in the cold. Asphalt has become indispensable of its kind, and it is still used today. From bitumen at one time they even paved the way to the famous London Buckingham Palace.
legends
Among local residents has been walking for a long time A long time ago, the Chima Indians lived on the site of the lake. Once they defeated their enemies and decided to celebrate it with a feast. They ate a lot of hummingbirds, which are considered sacred on the island, as the spirits of their ancestors sit in them. After this, the gods were very angry and cursed that place - they caused a break in the earth, after which the resinous liquids flooded the entire village of the Chima tribe. Nevertheless, this is only a legend and is a pleasant addition for regular tourists of the asphalt lake.
In addition to its unusualness and the fact that the lake has asphalt instead of water, it is amazing in many other ways:
- Peach Lake is small but deep (80 meters), so according to some reports, it contains 6 million tons of asphalt!
- Bituminous roads not only benefit from artificial asphalt in many ways, they are also durable, so this resource is used for laying runways for aircraft.
- The reserves of the lake are regularly replenished from the bowels of the earth, more than 10 million tons of asphalt have been extracted from it for all the time.
- According to experts, with the current rate of production of this natural resource there should be enough bitumen for laying roads for another 4 centuries!
- Asphalt from Peach Lake is used primarily for export to over 50 countries.
- The lake has one amazing fact: It can absorb objects into itself, and then return to the surface after a millennium. So, recently pieces were found from a skeleton that lived in the Pleistocene era, a mastodon tooth (a proboscis mammal that died out 10 thousand years ago), as well as some items of Indians who lived on the territory of Peach Lake for a very long time. Moreover, in 1928, a floating tree was discovered, whose age is 4 thousand years.
- The bitumen in Peach Lake is resilient, here water often accumulates on the surface after rains, which acquires a beautiful oil "rainbow". There are also paths for tourists, and a car can drive on the surface, but if it stops, it will begin to sink. Therefore, tourists are not recommended to go far from the coast, it is better to avoid places of hollows. Below, the photo of Peach Lake (asphalt lake) shows an already experienced local resident.
How to get there?
The lake is not only useful because of its asphalt, but is also the main attraction of Trinidad, which is visited by over 20 thousand tourists a year. It is dangerous to walk here on your own or alone, as the paths are sometimes difficult to notice, and you can get into the basin. For the tour, you should contact the guide, who will guide you through different places Peach Lake. For walking, it is important to choose comfortable waterproof shoes with thick soles. It is also forbidden to smoke and light a fire here, as it is dangerous due to the high content of sulfur and methane in the air. However, the views are extremely mesmerizing in the photo of Peach Lake.
Asphalt Lake is located 50 km south of the capital of the state - the city of Port of Spain, and very close to the city of La Brea. But it is better to get with a tour from a local tour operator. And flying here is real, but, as a rule, with transfers in some American cities.
This is one of the most amazing lakes on our planet located on the island of Trinidad. It consists of ... asphalt. And high quality asphalt. They cover the roads of the islanders, and not only them. For example, one of the most symbolically loaded roads in the world is the Pall Mall alley in London, which leads to Buckingham Palace, lined with natural asphalt from Peach Lake.
Lake Peach Lake, lying near the village of La Brea, is small - its area is about forty hectares. The depth, however, is impressive - more than eighty meters
Of course, it does not resemble any other lake - it is a pit filled with a semi-liquid black mass
Hundreds of tons of natural asphalt are scooped out of Peach Lake every year, but its level does not decrease: the underground bitumen "factory" works well, making up for what a person takes.
The surface of the lake is resilient and oily, if you try to "scoop up" its "water", it will stretch with threads of thick tar. This lake cannot be called motionless in any way - it has its own life, however, it is not at all like life in other lakes.
In the depths of Peach Lake, something is constantly bubbling ... And now, on the surface, strange thick waves slowly diverge towards the shore from the center, when a new portion of tar rises from the depths. Or it suddenly begins to bubble - this is how sulfur dioxide gases rise to its surface from the depths.
The lake has been known since ancient times. Even Walter Raleigh, an English navigator and organizer of pirate expeditions of the 16th century, used local asphalt to cover the hull of his ship and noted with satisfaction that it was better than tar, because it does not melt in the sun.
The asphalt of the lake looks so dense that it is quite possible to use it for its intended purpose - to walk on it, and even to drive. The filling of the lake is a non-Newtonian fluid, i.e. liquid, dense under sudden loads, but if the load is soft, then the asphalt mass will also be soft. Therefore, do not delude yourself - it is capable of insidiously absorbing, say, an animal that naively wandered into its shaky soil. When asphalt was mined from Peach Lake, they found in its very depths the bones of dinosaurs once swallowed by the lake.
How is such a strange phenomenon possible? It turns out that a depression about 80 meters deep, which was once the crater of a volcano, is now connected to its mouth. And oil, slowly rising to the surface, loses some of its volatile substances. And then, reacting with organic matter that gets into the “waters” of the lake in different ways, it becomes the very substance that is so profitable and convenient to cover roads.
Asphalt lakes, which are the product of the weathering of accumulated oil, are also known in California, in the Red Sea region, in Turkmenistan on about. Cheleken and in other places. On about. Sakhalin is known for several asphalt lakes, one of which has an area of about 3 hectares
Similar asphalt lakes have been known for a very long time, and asphalt was used in construction work. The city of Babylon in the 6th-7th century BC was surrounded by a wall, during the construction of which asphalt, mined in the Red Sea region, was used as a cementing material. It has been established that even several millennia BC, asphalt was used in India for the construction of pools, since the asphalt bottom and walls of the pools are impervious to water.
Oddly enough, there are tiny islands on the lake, on which even frail trees grow. Apparently, in the pockets between the layers of bitumen, over the years, what has become soil capable of giving life to plants even in such a strange, seemingly unsuitable place for life has accumulated over the years.
