Lake_Gnotuk

Lake Bullen Merri

Lake Bullen Merri

Brackish crater lake in Southwest Victoria


Lake Bullen Merri and its smaller northern neighbour Lake Gnotuk are a pair of crater lakes near Camperdown in south western Victoria, Australia.

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Lake Bullen Merri has brackish water quality whereas Lake Gnotuk is hyper saline (twice as salty than seawater).

Lake Bullen Merri

Lake Bullen Merri has a maximum depth of 66 m (217 ft), with a clover leaf outline indicating that it was probably formed by two overlapping maar volcanoes. The lake is depicted in work by Eugene von Guerard.[2] The edge of the lake was marked by a stone in the late 1800s by James Dawson; from this and von Guerard's painting, it can be deduced that the level of the lake has dropped considerably in the last 100 years.[3] On the south side of the lake there is a yacht club and toilets. There is a boat ramp available for the boaties.

Lake Gnotuk

The smaller lake to the north of Lake Bullen Merri has a maximum depth of 20 m (66 ft). The two lakes are linked by an overflow channel in the common wall at an elevation of 175 m. There is a 19th-century record of water from Bullen Merri overflowing into Gnotuk.

The crater is 2 km across and although the lakes have the same level of their lake-beds, the level of water is lower in Gnotuk. Lake shore terraces indicate previous higher levels and lake floor sediments and fossils show a record of past fluctuations in salinity, water level and climate.[4]

There is no direct public access to the lake.

On the low-lying land between the two lakes is Camperdown's major sporting complex. There is an 18-hole golf course, two cricket ovals (one with a turf pitch), an extensive equestrian course, tennis courts and a bowling green.

See also


References

  1. "Lake Bullen Merri". Vicnames. Government of Victoria. 2 May 1966. Archived from the original on 6 June 2014. Retrieved 4 June 2014.
  2. "Volcanic landforms in the Camperdown area of Victoria". UniServe Science. Retrieved 16 June 2007.



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This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Lake_Gnotuk, and is written by contributors. Text is available under a CC BY-SA 4.0 International License; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.