Asphalt Lake Peach Lake: history, origins, incredible facts, photos. Asphalt Pitch Lake

Source of natural asphalt. The seething Pitch Lake (Pitch Lake, translated from English as “Bitumen Lake”) is probably the strangest natural formation in the Caribbean. island nation Trinidad and Tobago. Once upon a time, the natives of the island considered Peach Lake a curse and a punishment from the gods. According to local legends, the lake appeared on the site ancient village, whose inhabitants, celebrating the victory over the enemies, were so carried away that they ate all the hummingbirds - the sacred birds of the island. For this fault, the gods severely punished them - the village sank to the bottom of the lake. However, there are so many of these tiny birds in the vicinity that it is hard to believe in the veracity of the legend.

At the end of the 16th century, Europeans discovered the lake. The English courtier, statesman and explorer of the New World, Walter Raleigh, immediately found a use for it: the black viscous asphalt mass was ideal for grinding the wooden plating of ships. It's unusual a natural phenomenon is a depression with an area of 40 hectares and a depth of up to 90 m, filled with liquid hot natural asphalt.

Ever since the Europeans discovered Peach Lake, there has been no deep research into the lake. It is believed that it constantly receives oil, which is released from the fault of the earth's surface at the bottom. Under the influence of external temperatures, part of the oil fractions evaporate, leaving heavier components - bitumen, which are mixed with rocks to form asphalt. This lake, one of three of its kind in the world, is the largest source of natural asphalt: about 300 tons of this substance are mined daily on its shores. According to experts, asphalt reserves in the lake with such a level of production will last for a long time, for about 400 years.

The elastic, oily surface of the asphalt lake resembles a tennis court, which seems to have been covered with wrinkled, elephant-like skin. Under the hard, dried surface, some processes are constantly taking place, accompanied by strange sounds. During the rainy season local population uses the lake as a huge heating pad, settling on a warm surface. The lake is fraught with many mysteries, in its dark depths the remains of ancient animals and plants were discovered. Perhaps someday it will be possible to find an Indian village, which, according to legend, was swallowed up asphalt lake.

Journey

How to get there. The capital of Trinidad and Tobago, Port of Spain, is easily accessible by plane. Next, you should head to the city of San Fernando by bus (less than 1.5 hours) or by fixed-route taxi for the same price. Asphalt Lake is located 22 km from San Fernando, near the town of La Brea. It can be reached by taxi. On the island of Trinidad, you can hire a taxi for the whole day or rent a car.

Tourist season

Peach Lake is open to the public from 09:00 to 17:00. Guided tours are organized. High heels are not recommended.

The temperature in Trinidad and Tobago is almost constant throughout the year and averages +27 C. Hurricanes are rare in these places. The rainy season on the islands lasts from June to November, the dry season - from December to May. High tourist season- from January to March, its peak is in February - the time of the carnival. As a rule, housing becomes cheaper during the off-season, from October to December and from April to June.

In Trinidad and Tobago, there is a special variety of human blood-sucking fleas that are especially active in the evenings. During the rainy season, mosquitoes can also annoy. Therefore, it is worth taking a good repellent with you.

The unusual Peach Lake is located in the southwest of the island of Trinidad in Venezuela. main feature this natural reservoir is that the lake is the world's largest reservoir of natural asphalt! You can’t swim here, there is no fish here, but you can safely walk along the lake on your own two feet!

Name Pitch Lake translated from English as "bituminous lake". The reservoir has a rather impressive size: its area is about 40 hectares, and the depth in some places reaches 80 meters. And this whole reservoir is filled with pure liquid asphalt!
amazing lake discovered by Walter Raleigh in 1595. The Englishman immediately found a use for bitumen, which they began to use to grind the wooden plating of ships.

Approximate reserves of asphalt in the lake are estimated at more than 6 million tons! Every year, about 50 thousand tons of high-quality asphalt is mined here, which is exported. At such a rate of extraction, the asphalt reserves in the lake will last for about 400 more years!

Thousands of tourists visit Peach Lake every year, attracted by the amazing opportunity to walk on the lake. The surroundings of Peach Lake are rather unremarkable and represent dozens of hectares of gray-brown mud. On the surface of the lake there are "islands of land" - small islands, which somehow grow low, frail trees.

Almost the entire surface of the lake is so strong that even an adult can walk on it. This is what most tourists enjoy. This occupation, although quite interesting, is extremely dirty! However, some places may seem solid only in appearance, and you run the risk of falling knee-deep, or even waist-deep into the black "waters" of Peach Lake ...

Despite the fact that the surface of the lake is relatively strong and resilient, something is constantly bubbling in its depths. Thick waves slowly spread across the surface of the lake, and sometimes the bitumen in Peach Lake begins to seethe and bubble ...

One of the properties of bituminous pits is the ability to easily absorb various objects that are well preserved in the depths of Peach Lake. So many skeletons of various animals have already been found on the lake (for example, a giant sloth that lived back in the Pleistocene), various Indian objects. One of the most interesting finds was a tree extracted from the depths of the lake in 1928. A cut was made from the tree, according to which it was determined that the age of the find was about 4 thousand years! In addition, during the extraction of asphalt, several dinosaur skeletons were raised from the bottom of the lake.

What is the origin of such strange lake?! It turns out that the depression on which the lake was formed was once the crater of a volcano and is still connected to its mouth. It is from there that oil rises to the surface, but as it moves up, it loses some of its volatile substances, gradually turning into liquid asphalt!

As mentioned above, asphalt from Lake Pich-Lake is mined mainly for export. For example, Pall Mall in London leading to Buckingham Palace, lined with just this natural asphalt from the amazing lake of Trinidad.

The unusual Peach Lake is located in the southwest of the island of Trinidad in Venezuela. The main feature of this natural reservoir is that the lake is the world's largest reservoir of natural asphalt! You can’t swim here, there is no fish here, but you can safely walk along the lake on your own two feet!

Name Pitch Lake translated from English as "bituminous lake". The reservoir has a rather impressive size: its area is about 40 hectares, and the depth in some places reaches 80 meters. And this whole reservoir is filled with pure liquid asphalt!
The amazing lake was discovered by Walter Raleigh in 1595. The Englishman immediately found a use for bitumen, which they began to use to grind the wooden plating of ships.

Thousands of tourists visit Peach Lake every year, attracted by the amazing opportunity to walk on the lake. The surroundings of Peach Lake are rather unremarkable and represent dozens of hectares of gray-brown mud. On the surface of the lake there are “islands of land” - small islands on which low, frail trees somehow grow.

One of the properties of bituminous pits is the ability to easily absorb various objects that are well preserved in the depths of Peach Lake. So many skeletons of various animals have already been found on the lake (for example, a giant sloth that lived back in the Pleistocene), various Indian objects. One of the most interesting finds was a tree taken from the depths of the lake in 1928. A cut was made from the tree, according to which it was determined that the age of the find was about 4 thousand years! In addition, during the extraction of asphalt, several dinosaur skeletons were raised from the bottom of the lake.

What is the origin of such a strange lake?! It turns out that the depression on which the lake was formed was once the crater of a volcano and is still connected to its mouth. It is from there that oil rises to the surface, but as it moves up, it loses some of its volatile substances, gradually turning into liquid asphalt!

As mentioned above, asphalt from Lake Pich-Lake is mined mainly for export. For example, the Pall Mall alley in London, leading to Buckingham Palace, is lined with just this natural asphalt from the amazing lake of Trinidad.

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 deposits 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. locals showed the Englishman the lake of "black gold", 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 of the natural material simply melted, pretty much soiling the 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. For example, about

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? Mined high quality natural material is exported, usually to China, the US 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.