Lake Barco is a lake in

Putnam County, Florida Putnam County is a county located in the northern part of the state of Florida. As of the 2020 census, the population was 73,321. Its county seat is Palatka. Putnam County comprises the Palatka, FL Micropolitan Statistical Area, which is inc ...

, United States. It is within the Ordway-Swisher Biological Station of the

Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences The University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS) is a teaching, research and Extension scientific organization focused on agriculture and natural resources. It is a partnership of federal, state, and county governmen ...

. It is roughly circular, about in diameter. The nearest settlement is

Melrose, Florida Melrose is an unincorporated community in Alachua, Bradford, Clay, and Putnam counties in the U.S. state of Florida. It lies on State Road 26, approximately east of Gainesville (straight-line distance) and approximately southwest of Jacksonvi ...

, about to the northwest.

Characteristics

Lake Barco is a

sinkhole lake A sinkhole is a depression or hole in the ground caused by some form of collapse of the surface layer. The term is sometimes used to refer to doline, enclosed depressions that are locally also known as ''vrtače'' and shakeholes, and to openi ...

, typical of the region, where unconsolidated deposits on the surface have slumped into the highly soluble limestone of the upper Floridan aquifer. The organic-rich sediments of the lake bottom lie on an unconfined aquifer made up mostly of sands. Below this are the unconsolidated clays and sands of the

Hawthorn Group The Hawthorn Group is a stratigraphic unit that includes several geologic formations of Late Oligocene to Pliocene age in North Florida, United States. It is known for its phosphate rock resources, and for its rich assemblages of Neogene vertebr ...

, through which water can penetrate, and below this the

Ocala Limestone The Ocala Limestone is a late Eocene geologic formation of exposed limestones near Ocala, Marion County, Florida. Age Period: Paleogene Epoch: Late Eocene Faunal stage: Late Clarkforkian through early Orellan Absolute Age: ~55.8 to ~33.9 mya, ...

of the upper Floridan aquifer. Groundwater monitoring wells have been placed around Lake Barco and nearby

Lake Suggs Lake Suggs, alternatively called Suggs Lake, is a lake in Putnam County, Florida. It is within the Ordway-Swisher Biological Station of the Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences. It is a marshy seepage lake and considered a baygall. The ...

to study the

hydrology Hydrology () is the scientific study of the movement, distribution, and management of water on Earth and other planets, including the water cycle, water resources, and environmental watershed sustainability. A practitioner of hydrology is calle ...

of the area. The lake has a mean annual temperature of and median rainfall of . It is recharged throughout the year. The lake is fed from the north and northeast by shallow groundwater, which seeps out towards the west and south. Deeper groundwater also flows below the lake. From

deuterium Deuterium (or hydrogen-2, symbol or deuterium, also known as heavy hydrogen) is one of two Stable isotope ratio, stable isotopes of hydrogen (the other being Hydrogen atom, protium, or hydrogen-1). The atomic nucleus, nucleus of a deuterium ato ...

and oxygen-18 isotope dating it is evident that some water evaporates from the lake, while other water flows downward towards the Ocala limestone. The lake seems to have started to become more acidic around 1950 due to absorption of

sulfate The sulfate or sulphate ion is a polyatomic anion with the empirical formula . Salts, acid derivatives, and peroxides of sulfate are widely used in industry. Sulfates occur widely in everyday life. Sulfates are salts of sulfuric acid and many ar ...

(SO₄) created by industrial processes from the atmosphere. The lake modifies the chemistry of the water that flows through it. As the water moves through the sediments in the lake bottom, which are rich in organics, the water is depleted in oxygen.

Ecology

The lake is surrounded by evergreen forest and mixed shrub/grassland. Terrestrial amphibians, including the threatened

gopher frog The gopher frog (''Lithobates capito'') is a species of frog in the family Ranidae, endemic to the south-eastern United States. It primarily inhabits the threatened sandhill communities, flatwoods, and scrub in the Atlantic coastal plain, whe ...

, use the lake as a breeding ground. It is an important watering hole for mammals and birds. The

National Ecological Observatory Network National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) is a large facility program operated by Battelle Memorial Institute and funded by the National Science Foundation. In full operation since 2019, NEON gathers and provides long-term, standardized da ...

samples the lake for aquatic organisms such as surface water microbes,

macroinvertebrates Invertebrates are a paraphyletic group of animals that neither possess nor develop a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''backbone'' or ''spine''), derived from the notochord. This is a grouping including all animals apart from the chordate s ...

, and

zooplankton Zooplankton are the animal component of the planktonic community ("zoo" comes from the Greek word for ''animal''). Plankton are aquatic organisms that are unable to swim effectively against currents, and consequently drift or are carried along by ...

References

Citations Sources * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Barco, Lake Lakes of Florida Lakes of Putnam County, Florida