Lake Maurepas ( ; french: Lac Maurepas) is located in southeastern

Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is bord ...

, approximately halfway between

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans

and

Baton Rouge Baton Rouge ( ; ) is a city in and the capital of the U.S. state of Louisiana. Located the eastern bank of the Mississippi River, it is the parish seat of East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana's most populous parish—the equivalent of counti ...

, directly west of

Lake Pontchartrain Lake Pontchartrain ( ) is an estuary located in southeastern Louisiana in the United States. It covers an area of with an average depth of . Some shipping channels are kept deeper through dredging. It is roughly oval in shape, about from w ...

Toponymy

Lake Maurepas was named for Jean-Frédéric Phélypeaux, comte de

Maurepas Maurepas may refer to: * Jean-Frédéric Phélypeaux, Count of Maurepas, French statesman Count of Maurepas (Yvelines) * Fort Maurepas, also known as Old Biloxi, a settlement in Louisiana (New France) * Maurepas, Louisiana, an unincorporated comm ...

, an eighteenth-century

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

statesman A statesman or stateswoman typically is a politician who has had a long and respected political career at the national or international level. Statesman or Statesmen may also refer to: Newspapers United States * ''The Statesman'' (Oregon), a ...

, chief adviser to King

Louis XVI Louis XVI (''Louis-Auguste''; ; 23 August 175421 January 1793) was the last King of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution. He was referred to as ''Citizen Louis Capet'' during the four months just before he was ...

.
Jean-Frédéric was the son of Louis Phélypeaux, comte de Pontchartrain, for whom

is named.

Characteristics

Lake Maurepas is a round-shaped, shallow,

brackish Brackish water, sometimes termed brack water, is water occurring in a natural environment that has more salinity than freshwater, but not as much as seawater. It may result from mixing seawater (salt water) and fresh water together, as in estua ...

tidal estuarine system. It is approximately 240 km². in area and has a mean depth of about 3.0 meters. The lake receives freshwater input through four river systems: Blind River,

Amite River The Amite River (french: Rivière Amite) is a tributary of Lake Maurepas in Mississippi and Louisiana in the United States. It is about long. It starts as two forks in southwestern Mississippi and flows south through Louisiana, passing Greate ...

Tickfaw River The Tickfaw River runs U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed June 20, 2011 from Amite County in southwest Mississippi to Livingston Parish in southeast Louisiana. Its mouth ...

, and the

Natalbany River The Natalbany River drains into Lake Maurepas in Louisiana in the United States. It is about long.U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed August 8, 2019 Etymology It is specu ...

. The average freshwater input to Lake Maurepas from these rivers and other minor terrestrial sources is less than 3,400 cubic feet per second (CWPPRA Environmental Workgroup, 2001).
At the northeast, Lake Maurepas is connected to

by Pass Manchac (comprising South Pass and the smaller North Pass). The land between these two passes forms Jones Island, and the passes converge on the eastern side of the island into one unified Pass Manchac. Tidal exchange with Lake Pontchartrain through Pass Manchac is a more significant influence on Lake Maurepas’s volumetric and elevation characteristics than tributary freshwater discharge. The

Manchac Swamp Bridge The Manchac Swamp Bridge is a twin concrete trestle bridge near Manchac in the US state of Louisiana. With a total length of , it is one of the longest bridges in the world over water and is the longest bridge on the Interstate Highway Syste ...

, which carries

Interstate 55 Interstate 55 (I-55) is a major Interstate Highway in the central United States. As with most primary Interstates that end in a five, it is a major cross-country, north–south route, connecting the Gulf of Mexico to the Great Lakes. The h ...

, traverses this area between Lakes Maurepas and Pontchartrain.
The mean astronomical tide in Lake Maurepas is approximately 0.15 m (0.5 ft); however, greater tidal amplitudes are associated with meteorological events (i.e., winds) that influence both Lake Pontchartrain and Lake Maurepas. This results in interesting patterns of tidal exchange and, presumably, in situ mixing on weekly and

fortnight A fortnight is a unit of time equal to 14 days (two weeks). The word derives from the Old English term , meaning "" (or "fourteen days," since the Anglo-Saxons counted by nights). Astronomy and tides In astronomy, a ''lunar fortnight'' is ha ...

ly time scales. The lake’s

salinity Salinity () is the saltiness or amount of salt (chemistry), salt dissolved in a body of water, called saline water (see also soil salinity). It is usually measured in g/L or g/kg (grams of salt per liter/kilogram of water; the latter is dimensio ...

is directly influenced by exchange with Lake Pontchartrain.
Salinities in Lake Maurepas have been observed to range between 0 and 3 parts per thousand (Day et al., 2004). Typically, salinities are higher along the eastern shore, near Pass Manchac. Due to Lake Maurepas’s shallow depths, even relatively low energy wave action results in sediment resuspension and, therefore, relatively high turbidities and low transparencies, which influence the degree to which primary production can occur in the water column and

benthos Benthos (), also known as benthon, is the community of organisms that live on, in, or near the bottom of a sea, river, lake, or stream, also known as the benthic zone.Maurepas Swamp Wildlife Management Area (WMA) is located approximately 25 miles northwest of New Orleans, along the south shore as well as south of Lake Maurepas. The area is north of

LaPlace Pierre-Simon, marquis de Laplace (; ; 23 March 1749 – 5 March 1827) was a French scholar and polymath whose work was important to the development of engineering, mathematics, statistics, physics, astronomy, and philosophy. He summarized ...

and extends towards

Sorrento Sorrento (, ; nap, Surriento ; la, Surrentum) is a town overlooking the Bay of Naples in Southern Italy. A popular tourist destination, Sorrento is located on the Sorrentine Peninsula at the south-eastern terminus of the Circumvesuviana rail ...

. Initially the

Richard King Mellon Foundation Richard King Mellon (June 19, 1899 – June 3, 1970), commonly known as R.K., was an American financier, general, and philanthropist from Ligonier, Pennsylvania, and part of the Mellon family. Biography The son of Richard B. Mellon, nephew of A ...

donated 61,633 acres to the

Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (LDWF) is a state agency of Louisiana that maintains state wildlife and fishery areas. The agency is headquartered in the capital city of Baton Rouge. Mission The Louisiana Department of Wildlife ...

(LDWF) for the Maurepas Swamp WMA. Subsequent acquisitions and donations brought the total to 122,098 acres. The swamp would benefit from "cooperative freshwater reintroduction projects designed to revive the swamp, and improved control of invasive plant species that have overtaken much of this important and scenic swamp."Louisiana Department of Wildlife & Fisheries: Maurepas Swamp WMA
Retrieved 2016-08-07

References

{{authority control Bodies of water of Livingston Parish, Louisiana Bodies of water of St. John the Baptist Parish, Louisiana Bodies of water of Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana

Tributaries of Lake Pontchartrain

Toponymy

Characteristics

See also

References