Lake McConnell was a very large
proglacial lake
In geology, a proglacial lake is a lake formed either by the damming action of a moraine during the retreat of a melting glacier, a glacial ice dam, or by meltwater trapped against an ice sheet due to isostatic depression of the crust around the ...
that existed in what is now
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
from 11,800 to 8,300 years ago.
Other sources give starting and ending dates of about 12,000
and between 9,000 and 8,000 years ago,
respectively. It covered parts of what are now the
Great Bear Lake
Great Bear Lake ( den, Sahtú; french: Grand lac de l'Ours) is a lake in the boreal forest of Canada. It is the largest lake entirely in Canada (Lake Superior and Lake Huron are larger but straddle the Canada–US border), the fourth-largest ...
,
Great Slave Lake
Great Slave Lake (french: Grand lac des Esclaves), known traditionally as Tıdeè in Tłı̨chǫ Yatıì (Dogrib), Tinde’e in Wıìlıìdeh Yatii / Tetsǫ́t’ıné Yatıé (Dogrib / Chipewyan), Tu Nedhé in Dëne Sųłıné Yatıé (Chi ...
and
Lake Athabaska
Lake Athabasca (; French: ''lac Athabasca''; from Woods Cree: , "herethere are plants one after another") is located in the north-west corner of Saskatchewan and the north-east corner of Alberta between 58° and 60° N in Canada. The lake ...
basins up to an elevation of or ,
[
] with a maximum surface area of achieved 10,500 years ago.
[ At its greatest length of , it was longer than any modern freshwater lake.][ "Lake McConnell (or its smaller predecessor, ]Lake Peace
Lake Peace was a post ice-age glacial lake in what is now the Peace River basin in northeastern British Columbia and northwestern Alberta.
It formed approximately 14,000 BCE, after the Last Glacial Maximum, as the Laurentide Ice Sheet and Cordil ...
) is believed to have drained first into Lake Agassiz
Lake Agassiz was a large glacial lake in central North America. Fed by glacial meltwater at the end of the last glacial period, its area was larger than all of the modern Great Lakes combined.
First postulated in 1823 by William H. Keating, it ...
", an even larger lake to the southeast, "then into the Arctic Ocean
The Arctic Ocean is the smallest and shallowest of the world's five major oceans. It spans an area of approximately and is known as the coldest of all the oceans. The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) recognizes it as an ocean, a ...
via the Mackenzie River, then back into Lake Agassiz, and then back to the Arctic Ocean" at various times in its history.[ Between 9,000 and 8,000 years ago, it divided to form Great Slave Lake and Lake Athabasca. These two and Great Bear Lake are considered its 'daughter' lakes.][
]
See also
*List of prehistoric lakes
This a partial list of prehistoric lakes. Although the form of the names below differ, the lists are alphabetized by the identifying name of the lake (e.g., Algonquin for Glacial Lake Algonquin). YBP = Years Before Present.
North America Endor ...
References
External links
Map of Lake McConnell at 10 ka BPA larger scale map
with "L. Mc." in the upper left
{{DEFAULTSORT:McConnell
Former lakes of North America
Proglacial lakes