Lake Erie

Lake Erie is one of the five large freshwater Great Lakes in North America, the world's largest such lakes.

It has a surface area of 24,000 km² (10,000 sq. miles), an average depth of 19 meters (62 feet), and a retention time of 2.6 years. (For comparison, Lake Superior has a retention time of 191 years and an average depth of 483 feet.)

Lake Erie is primarily fed by the Detroit River (from Lake Huron and Lake St. Clair) and drains via Niagara Falls into Lake Ontario.

History

1813: Battle of Lake Erie, Oliver Perry

Ecology

Lake Erie is the shallowest of the Great Lakes and became famously polluted in the 1960s and 1970s. Environmental regulation[?] led to a great increase in water quality; however, invasive Zebra mussels[?] currently threaten the entire Lake Erie ecosystem.

The states of the United States of America and provinces of Canada that border Lake Erie are:

to the south of the lake:

Ohio

Pennsylvania

New York

at the west end:

Michigan

to the north:

Ontario

see also:

Cedar Point

Bass Island[?]

Erie Canal

Quagga Mussel[?]

Zebra Mussel[?]