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Lake Location:
Venezuela | Lake Area:
5,217 sq. miles | Lake Depth:
115 feet |
Lake Maracaibo
Lake Maracaibo is a large brackish lake in Venezuela. It is connected to the Gulf of Venezuela by a 55km strait on the northern edge of the lake, and fed by numerous rivers, the largest being the Catatumbo River. It is the largest lake in South America, at 13,210 km2, and one of the oldest lakes on Earth.
Lake Maracaibo acts as a major shipping route to the ports of Maracaibo and Cabimas. The surrounding Maracaibo Basin contains large reserves of crude oil, making the lake a major profit center for Venezuela. A dredged channel gives oceangoing vessels access to the lake. The General Rafael Urdaneta Bridge (8.7 km long; completed 1962), spanning the lake's outlet, is one of the longest bridges in the world.
The first settlements on the lake were those of the Goajiro Indians, who speak an Arawakan language.
The first European to discover the lake was Alonso de Ojeda in 1499, on a voyage with Amerigo Vespucci. The port town of Maracaibo was founded in 1529 on the western side the lake.
In July of 1823, the lake was the site of Battle of Lake Maracaibo, an important battle in the Venezuelan War of Independence.
Oil production began in the surrounding basin in 1914, with wells drilled by Bataafsche Petroleum Maatschappij, a predecessor of Royal Dutch Shell.
On April 6, 1964, at 11:45 pm, the supertanker Esso Maracaibo, loaded with 236,000 barrels of crude oil, hit pier # 31 of the two-year-old General Rafael Urdaneta Bridge that connects Maracaibo with much of the rest of Venezuela. The vessel had recently been loaded with oil, and lost steering due to a major electrical failure onboard, which lead to the collision. A 259 metre section of the bridge roadway fell into the water with a portion coming to rest across the tanker just a few feet from the ship's superstructure. The bridge damage lead to the deaths of seven people whose vehicles fell off of the damaged area. Amazingly, there was no loss of life or serious injury on the tanker. No oil spill occurred.
Several settlements built out on stilts over the lake - palafitos - still exist in the south and south-west, notably at Lagunetas.
These villages are cut off from modern amenities and supplies, and life there is hard. The populations are inbred and suffer from inherited disorders, particularly Huntington's disease, which is known by its old name El Mal de San Vito (St. Vitus' dance).
Due to the massive volume of oil removed in the Maracaibo Basin, Lake Maracaibo has sunk, changing the geography of the region. In response, the Venezuelan government was forced to build an earthen dike around sub-sea-level Lagunillas to prevent encroachment by the waters. Many consider the dike to be a disaster in the waiting, with the potential of an earthquake causing soil liquefaction and submerging a large population.
As of June 18, 2004, a large portion (18%) of the surface of Lake Maracaibo is covered by duckweed specifically Lemna . Although efforts to remove the plant have been underway since May, the plant-which can double its size every 48 hours-covers over 130 million cubic metres of the lake. The only way to remove the weed is to pull it out of the lake physically—no chemical or biological method has been found to treat the weed. The government has been spending $2 million monthly to clean the lake, and the state-run oil company Petroleos de Venezuela S.A. has created a $750 million cleanup fund. Current efforts are barely keeping up with the growth of the plant. The removal process has proven to be particularly difficult in the center of the lake where a specially equipped ship may be needed to pull the weed off the lake. More likely, however, the weed will simply run out of nutrients and the outbreak will die down on its own.
There is some mystery as to how the plant came to reside in the waters of Lake Maracaibo. According to scientists from the Institute for the Conservation of Lake Maracaibo (ICLAM), one of the government organizations charged with the care of Lake Maracaibo, the weed is probably native to the lake, but few studies have been conducted to confirm that suspicion. The prodigious growth of the freshwater marine plant is likely a self-purification mechanism. Others disagree, believing the type of duckweed to be native to Florida and Texas and thus the infestation is a result of its having been transported by ship. (Source)
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