Lago de Camécuaro National Park is located east of the city of

Zamora de Hidalgo Zamora may refer to: Places and jurisdictions Europe Spain * Zamora, Spain, a city in the autonomous community of Castilla y León * Province of Zamora, a province in the autonomous community of Castilla y León * Associated with the city and ...

in the municipality of

Tangancícuaro Tangancícuaro is a municipio (municipality) in the Mexican state of Michoacán, western Mexico. The municipal seat is the City of Tangancícuaro de Arista. Geography Tangancícuaro is at an altitude of 1,700 meters above sea level, with an ar ...

in the state of

Michoacán Michoacán, formally Michoacán de Ocampo (; Purépecha: ), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Michoacán de Ocampo ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Michoacán de Ocampo), is one of the 32 states which comprise the Federal Entities of ...

. The park consists of of protected area including Camécuaro Lake which is supplied by a series of natural springs. The lake is popular due to its clear water and the vegetation that surrounds the lake. Even though the lake is relatively small, many photographers from all over Mexico come to take photographs of the park's views.

Toponymy

Camécuaro derives from the native language

purépecha The Purépecha (endonym pua, P'urhepecha ) are a group of indigenous people centered in the northwestern region of Michoacán, Mexico, mainly in the area of the cities of Cherán and Pátzcuaro. They are also known by the pejorative "Tarascan ...

or tarasca which means "Place of Bathing"

Geography

Lago de Camécuaro National Park is located 14 km (8.5 mi) east of the city of Zamora de Hidalgo, Michoacán on Federal Highway 15 heading towards

Morelia Morelia (; from 1545 to 1828 known as Valladolid) is a city and municipal seat of the municipality of Morelia in the north-central part of the state of Michoacán in central Mexico. The city is in the Guayangareo Valley and is the capital and larg ...

, Michoacán. The lake itself has a surface area of approximately and has a maximum depth of . The lake is supplied with water from numerous springs slightly to the south of the lake. Camécuaro Lake then empties at a slow rate into the Duero River which is an important tributary to the

Lerma River The Lerma River ( es, Río Lerma) is Mexico's second longest river. It is a river in west-central Mexico that begins in Mexican Plateau at an altitude over above sea level, and ends where it empties into Lake Chapala, Mexico's largest lake, near ...

. The park is part of a large

alluvial plain An alluvial plain is a largely flat landform created by the deposition of sediment over a long period of time by one or more rivers coming from highland regions, from which alluvial soil forms. A floodplain is part of the process, being the sma ...

surrounded by mountains with a northeast-southeast orientation. The topography of the park is flat with no slopes greater than 5%. The park is found at 1,700 m (5,577 ft) above sea level. During the

Cenozoic The Cenozoic ( ; ) is Earth's current geological era, representing the last 66million years of Earth's history. It is characterised by the dominance of mammals, birds and flowering plants, a cooling and drying climate, and the current configura ...

the area was a

flood plain A floodplain or flood plain or bottomlands is an area of land adjacent to a river which stretches from the banks of its channel to the base of the enclosing valley walls, and which experiences flooding during periods of high discharge.Goudi ...

of the Duero River which deposited large amounts of

basalt Basalt (; ) is an aphanite, aphanitic (fine-grained) extrusive igneous rock formed from the rapid cooling of low-viscosity lava rich in magnesium and iron (mafic lava) exposed at or very near the planetary surface, surface of a terrestrial ...

breccia Breccia () is a rock composed of large angular broken fragments of minerals or rocks cemented together by a fine-grained matrix. The word has its origins in the Italian language, in which it means "rubble". A breccia may have a variety of di ...

, calcareous tuff,

tuff Tuff is a type of rock made of volcanic ash ejected from a vent during a volcanic eruption. Following ejection and deposition, the ash is lithified into a solid rock. Rock that contains greater than 75% ash is considered tuff, while rock cont ...

andesite Andesite () is a volcanic rock of intermediate composition. In a general sense, it is the intermediate type between silica-poor basalt and silica-rich rhyolite. It is fine-grained (aphanitic) to porphyritic in texture, and is composed predomi ...

, and

rhyolite Rhyolite ( ) is the most silica-rich of volcanic rocks. It is generally glassy or fine-grained (aphanitic) in texture, but may be porphyritic, containing larger mineral crystals (phenocrysts) in an otherwise fine-grained groundmass. The mineral ...

. The dominant basalt rock found in the area give the soil a rich source of: calcium, magnesium, iron, potassium, and sodium. The soils in the park and surrounding areas are rich and fertile making the region perfect for agriculture. The soil in the area is classified as pellic

vertisol A vertisol, or vertosol, is a soil type in which there is a high content of expansive clay minerals, many of them known as montmorillonite, that form deep cracks in drier seasons or years. In a phenomenon known as argillipedoturbation, alternat ...

with significant amounts of chromate; the soil is of fine texture with rocky layer containing rocks smaller than 7.5 cm³.

History

The park was declared a national park by President

Lázaro Cárdenas del Río Lázaro is a Spanish or Portuguese-based given name or surname. Notable people with the name include: Given name *Lázaro (footballer, born 1990), full name Lázaro Vinícius Alves Martins, Brazilian footballer * Lázaro (footballer, born 2002), fu ...

on July 18, 1940 in efforts to conserve the flora and fauna found there. The presidential decree was later signed into law on December 8, 1941.

Climate

The park has a humid subtropical climate (Cwa) with average annual temperature of 18.5 °C (65 °F). The warmest month is May with an average temperature of 23.3 °C (74 °F), and the coldest month is December with an average temperature of 14.7 °C (59 °F). The park has an average annual precipitation of about 900.6 mm (35.4 in) mostly falling during the summer.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lago de Camecuaro National Park Protected areas of Michoacán National parks of Mexico Bajío dry forests