This is the largest of the great lakes. It is bordered by Ontario, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Michigan.
· Lake Superior contains ten percent of all the fresh water on the planet Earth.
· It covers 82,000 square kilometers or 31,700 square miles.
· The average depth is 147 meters or 483 feet.
· There have been about 350 shipwrecks recorded in Lake Superior.
· Lake Superior is, by surface area, the largest lake in the world.
· A Jesuit priest in 1668 named it Lac Tracy, but that name was never officially adopted.
· It contains as much water as all the other Great Lakes combined, plus three extra Lake Eries .
· There is a small outflow from the lake at St. Marys River (Sault Ste Marie) into Lake Huron. but it takes almost two centuries for the water to be completely replaced.
· There is enough water in Lake Superior to cover all of North and South America with water a foot deep.
· Lake Superior was formed during the last glacial retreat, making it one of the earth's youngest
major features at only about 10,000 years old.
· The deepest point in the lake is 405 meters or 1,333 feet.
· There are 78 different species of fish that call the big lake home.
· The maximum wave ever recorded on Lake Superior was 9.45 meters or 31 feet high.
· If you stretched the shoreline of Lake Superior out to a straight line, it would be long enough to reach from Duluth to the Bahamas.
· Over 300 streams and rivers empty into Lake Superior with the largest source being the Nipigon River.
· The average underwater visibility of Lake Superior is about 8 meters or 27 feet, making it the cleanest and
clearest of the Great Lakes. Underwater visibility in some spots reaches 30 meters.
· In the summer, the sun sets more than 35 minutes later on the western shore of Lake Superior
than at its southeastern edge.
· Some of the world's oldest rocks, formed about 2.7 billion years ago, can be found on the Ontario shore of Lake Superior.
· It very rarely freezes over completely, and then usually just for a few hours. Complete freezing
occurred in 1962, 1979, 2003 and 2009.
Interesting facts. Actually all new to me. Either that or I don't remember any of them. But then living on the West Coast one tends not to learn all the details about the rest of the U.S. We enjoy lighthouses. It would be cool to someday visit some of the lighthouses on the Great Lakes.
ReplyDeleteI remeber swimming in it as a kid. So very cold brrr.
ReplyDeleteLake Superior coastline is great on a warm, sunshiny day...otherwise, it can be very cold and blustery...
ReplyDeleteOh that is one place I have never been...but have always wanted to go. Thanks for all this info. xoxoxo
ReplyDeleteI was born and raised on Lake Superior, in Thunder Bay. I have been fortunate enough to have visited the other great lakes but they are nothing like Superior. It is beautiful, severe, cold, but completely awesome. An incredible sight.
ReplyDeleteI really wanna go see Lake Superior and all of the great lakes one day! They are truly amazing! I love all the facts you have for us. I didn't know most of em!
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