Puyehue Lake (), (

Mapudungun Mapuche (, Mapuche & Spanish: , or Mapudungun; from ' 'land' and ' 'speak, speech') is an Araucanian language related to Huilliche spoken in south-central Chile and west-central Argentina by the Mapuche people (from ''mapu'' 'land' and ''che ...

: ''puye'', "small fish" and ''hue'', "place") is an

Andean The Andes, Andes Mountains or Andean Mountains (; ) are the List of mountain ranges#Mountain ranges by length, longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America. The range i ...

piedmont it, Piemontese , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = , demographics1_title2 ...

lake on the border of

Los Lagos Region Los Lagos Region ( es, Región de Los Lagos , ''Region of the Lakes'') is one of Chile's 16 regions, which are first order administrative divisions, and comprises four provinces: Chiloé, Llanquihue, Osorno and Palena. The region contains ...

with

Los Ríos Region The Los Ríos Region (Spanish: ''Región de Los Ríos'', , ''Region of the Rivers'') is one of Chile's 16 regions, the country's first-order administrative divisions. Its capital is Valdivia. It began to operate as a region on October 2, 2007, ...

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

. Puyehue is a lake of glacial origin. Several times during the

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological Epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fina ...

glaciation A glacial period (alternatively glacial or glaciation) is an interval of time (thousands of years) within an ice age that is marked by colder temperatures and glacier advances. Interglacials, on the other hand, are periods of warmer climate betw ...

s, the lake depression was occupied by a large glacial lobe of the

Patagonian Ice Sheet upright=1.4, Map showing the extent of the Patagonian Ice Sheet in the Strait of Magellan area during the last glacial period. Selected modern settlements are shown with yellow dots. Sea level was much lower than shown here. The Patagonian Ice S ...

, which formed a series of

moraine A moraine is any accumulation of unconsolidated debris (regolith and rock), sometimes referred to as glacial till, that occurs in both currently and formerly glaciated regions, and that has been previously carried along by a glacier or ice shee ...

s along its western shore. The lake has an east-west elongated shape with Fresia Island in the middle and two minor peninsulas pointing toward the island, one from the north and one from the south. The lake has a remarkably smooth shoreline, with only one inlet of significance: Futacullín Bay on the south.

Entre Lagos Entre Lagos is the main town of Puyehue commune in Osorno Province of Los Lagos Region, Chile. It is east of Osorno, next to the entrance of the Pilmaiquén River at the western end of Puyehue Lake. It is the only town of any size on the lake. ...

at the western end is the only town on the lake. As with most other lakes of

southern Chile Southern Chile is an informal geographic term for any place south of the capital city, Santiago, or south of Biobío River, the mouth of which is Concepción, about {{convert, 200, mi, km, sigfig=1, order=flip south of Santiago. Generally cities ...

, Puyehue Lake acts as a

sediment Sediment is a naturally occurring material that is broken down by processes of weathering and erosion, and is subsequently transported by the action of wind, water, or ice or by the force of gravity acting on the particles. For example, sand an ...

trap for material from the Andes. Sediment cores taken from Puyehue Lake in 2001 and 2002 have been interpreted as supporting the existence of the

Little Ice Age The Little Ice Age (LIA) was a period of regional cooling, particularly pronounced in the North Atlantic region. It was not a true ice age of global extent. The term was introduced into scientific literature by François E. Matthes in 1939. Ma ...

in the Southern Hemisphere. A longer sediment core from the same site was used to reconstruct the evolution of the lake and its drainage basin during the last 18,000 years. At the time the glacier occupying the Puyhue basin had retreated during

deglaciation Deglaciation is the transition from full glacial conditions during ice ages, to warm interglacials, characterized by global warming and sea level rise due to change in continental ice volume. Thus, it refers to the retreat of a glacier, an ice shee ...

as to calv at a proglacial Puyehue Lake the glacier at Rupanco basin (40°49' S) was at its maximum extent. For a time meltwater from the Rupanco glacier flowed north into Puyehue Lake. The 2011 Puyehue Volcano eruption polluted the

Golgol River The Gol-Gol River is the main tributary of Puyehue Lake in southern Chile.Río Golgol

, a source of the lake, killing fish.

Pyroclast Tephra is fragmental material produced by a volcanic eruption regardless of composition, fragment size, or emplacement mechanism. Volcanologists also refer to airborne fragments as pyroclasts. Once clasts have fallen to the ground, they rem ...

ic material reached Puyehue Lake through river transport, which resulted in the deposition of a layer of volcanic ash at the bottom of the lake. Chile

In the 16th century the lake was known to the Spanish as ''Llobén'', from the

Huilliche The Huilliche , Huiliche or Huilliche-Mapuche are the southern partiality of the Mapuche macroethnic group of Chile. Located in the Zona Sur, they inhabit both Futahuillimapu ("great land of the south") and, as the Cunco subgroup, the north hal ...

word of ''llofën'' meaning "abundant and continuous rain."

References

Puyehue Lakes of Los Ríos Region Lakes of Los Lagos Region Mapuche language {{Chile-lake-stub