Yellowstone Lake
Yellowstone Lake, large natural lake in Yellowstone National Park, northwestern Wyoming, U.S. It lies at 7,730 feet (2,356 metres) above sea level and is the largest body of water in North America, and the second largest in the world, at so high an elevation. It is fed by some six dozen streams and rivers, including the Yellowstone River, which flows into the lake in the southeast and drains it at the northern end. About 20 miles (32 km) long and 14 miles (23 km) wide at its greatest extent, the lake has a surface area of 132 square miles (342 square km), a shoreline of 141 miles (227 km), an average depth of 140 feet (43 metres), and a maximum depth variously given as about 390 or 410 feet (119 or 125 metres). Although hot water is now known to flow into the lake from vents located at places along the bottom (in addition to the small amount flowing in from the West Thumb Geyser Basin), the lake’s water remains cold throughout the year. Ice begins to form on its surface in late December or early January, and it remains frozen until late May or early June.
The northern two-thirds of the irregularly shaped lake occupies the southeastern portion of the Yellowstone Caldera, an enormous crater in the land’s surface formed by a cataclysmic volcanic eruption in the region some 640,000 years ago. Two branches, the South and Southeast arms, constitute southward fjordlike extensions outside of the caldera from the roughly oval main portion of the lake. In addition, the West Thumb is a knoblike protrusion on the lake’s western side that was formed by a relatively small eruption in the caldera about 150,000 years ago. The West Thumb Geyser Basin was the first of Yellowstone’s hydrothermal features to be described in print, in a letter published in a Philadelphia newspaper in 1827.
Yellowstone Lake and its environs are a haven for aquatic birds, including Canada geese, several species of ducks, sandhill cranes, common loons, American white pelicans, and the rare trumpeter swan. The lake is also prized for trout fishing, although the native cutthroat trout are now endangered by introduced predators, notably lake trout. As a result, anglers must observe a catch-and-release policy for native species, and fishing is prohibited from the popular Fishing Bridge at the north end of the lake.