Heart shaped lake, possibly in Korea
Image: pixelprime
Look hard enough and you’ll see the physical environment, both natural and man-made, has a message for us – sometimes in the most unusual places. Lakes and other bodies of water aren’t the first places one might expect to discern symbols, figures and other shapes, but viewed from above they can be surprisingly communicative. We’ve scoured the globe for images of lakes whose shapes speak volumes.
The Lake Eros had a hand in
Image: freebird (bobinson)
Nature again has romantic designs with a lake in the shape of the universal symbol for love. This one is to be found in the less frost-bitten environment of Kerala, India – specifically within the beautiful Wayanad district, near Chembra Peak, at about 1,398 metres above sea level. With a surface area of 1,827 square meters, it’s not a big a heart, but it is a fairly warm one.
The Lake that leads the Latin Alphabet
Image: louburland
To be honest there are simply loads of heart-shaped lakes out there – everywhere from Ohio to Korea – so we just didn’t have room for all of them here. Shot from a balloon, this next lake – or perhaps more accurately pond – looks like the letter ‘A’ to us. Anyone know of other lakes that spell something out to them? We’d be interested to hear.
The Lake that Bond built
Image via: armchairtravelogue
Nature had a little help from Man with this pistol-like body of water, Belgium’s 2.5 km long Schulensmeer, but it’s coincidence it looks like an ad for the next 007 movie. It was artificially created in the ’70s when sand was needed to build a nearby highway, and owes its shape to the parcels of land that were bought for this purpose. Popular for watersports, it’s also an overflow for the Demer River in case of flooding.
The Lake designed by Pisces
Image: dragonfly23
This frozen-over, fish-shaped wonder was captured on Alaska’s Mt. McKinley, the highest mountain peak in North America at around 6,194 metres. Mount McKinley actually has a larger rise than Mount Everest, as its base sits at a much lower elevation of 610 m, and is also bulkier than its Himalayan rival. With such imposing facts, it’s no wonder this obscurely fishy lake is less well-known.
The Lake in the image of Man
This next shape is clearly a product of deliberate human intervention in the natural landscape, a figure that stands some 140 metres tall in a lake located near Iacanga in the Brazilian state of São Paulo. However, aside from its location and vital statistics, information about this strange piece of land art is scarce. Anyone know anything we don’t? If so, pray do tell.
The Lake that says ‘How do you do?’
The previous lake may have been man-shaped by design, but this next one looks more natural; natural but not au naturel – see he’s wearing a hat and cane as he walks across the countryside. We’re not sure where this is, but we’ve featured it on EG before and one commenter reckoned it could be Blythefield Reservoir in Staffordshire, England; another said it must be Mr. Peanut of Planters fame.
The Lake of Lady Luck
Image: Greg Brooks
Canada’s aptly-named Horseshoe Lake might bring luck for some, but geographically oxbow lakes like this are not uncommon. These sweeping U-shaped bodies of water are formed when a wide meander from a river’s main stem is cut off, creating the characteristically curved lake. This fine-looking example is located along the long the Red River, near Morris in southern Manitoba.
The bodies of water you can make your own mind up about
Image via: University of Florida
In this next pic a few emergent oxbow lakes are visible, one of which forms the eye of some strange-looking creature. Is it a bird sticking out its tongue and spitting stuff out? Maybe it’s just us. Anyways, the zigzagging body of water forming the outline of whatever-it-is is Fisheating Creek, which runs through Cowbone March west of Florida’s Lake Okeechobee, itself known as The Big O.
The River that doubles your luck
Image: Moondigger
So how do oxbow lakes arise? Well many of them start out a lot like this. Yes, we know, it isn’t a lake, but it could be one in the making. This is Arizona’s Horseshoe Bend, a magnificent meander of the Colorado River situated slightly downstream from Lake Powell within Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. From the steep cliff above, some 305 metres higher up, it makes a breathtaking sight.
Records show that in the 1800's peanuts were grown commercially in South Carolina and used for oil, food and a cocoa substitute. However, peanuts were regarded as food for livestock and the poor. They also were difficult to grow and harvest, so they were not widely grown in the United States.
The first notable increase in USA peanut consumption came in 1860 with the outbreak of the Civil War. Soldiers on both sides turned to peanuts for food. They took their taste for peanuts home with them and peanuts were sold freshly roasted by street vendors and at baseball games and circuses. While peanut production rose during this time, peanuts were still harvested by hand, leaving stems and trash in the peanuts. Thus, poor quality and lack of uniformity kept down the demand for peanuts.
Around 1900, labor-saving equipment was invented for planting, cultivating, harvesting and picking peanuts from the plants, as well as for shelling and cleaning the kernels. With these mechanical aids, peanuts rapidly came into demand for oil, roasted and salted nuts, peanut butter and candy.
In 1903, George Washington Carver began his research at Tuskegee Institute. While peanut butter had been developed by then, Carver developed more than 300 other uses for peanuts and improved peanut horticulture so much that he is considered by many to be the "father of the peanut industry." The botanist recognized the value of peanuts as a cash crop and proposed that peanuts be planted as a rotation crop in the Southeast cotton-growing areas where the boll weevil insect threatened the region's agricultural base.
Today, peanuts contribute more than four billion dollars to the U.S. economy each year. Americans eat more than 600 million pounds of peanuts and about 700 million pounds of peanut butter each year.
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