Colourful lakelets (Polish "Kolorowe Jeziorka") is the name of three (sometimes four) artificial

pond A pond is a small, still, land-based body of water formed by pooling inside a depression (geology), depression, either naturally or artificiality, artificially. A pond is smaller than a lake and there are no official criteria distinguishing ...

s formed in place of former mines at the slope of Wielka Kopa mountain (871 m) in Rudawy Janowickie, range in

Sudetes The Sudetes ( ), also known as the Sudeten Mountains or Sudetic Mountains, is a geomorphological subprovince of the Bohemian Massif province in Central Europe, shared by the Czech Republic, Poland and Germany. They consist mainly of mountain rang ...

Mountains,

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

. The biggest one and the oldest (1785) was named Hoffnung Grube and now hosts the Purple lakelet. Names of the other mines were: Neues Glück (1793, presently Azure Lakelet), and Gustav Grube (1796; the Green Lakelet). These places were mined from 1785 to 1925 for

pyrite The mineral pyrite ( ), or iron pyrite, also known as fool's gold, is an iron sulfide with the chemical formula Fe S2 (iron (II) disulfide). Pyrite is the most abundant sulfide mineral. Pyrite's metallic luster and pale brass-yellow hue ...

. The lakelets have various surface elevation. The Purple lakelet (560 m) owes its colour to

chemical composition A chemical composition specifies the identity, arrangement, and ratio of the chemical elements making up a compound by way of chemical and atomic bonds. Chemical formulas can be used to describe the relative amounts of elements present in a com ...

of its banks and bottom which are abundant with

iron compounds Iron shows the characteristic chemical properties of the transition metals, namely the ability to form variable oxidation states differing by steps of one and a very large Coordination complex, coordination and Organometallic chemistry, organomet ...

, mainly pyrite. The pond is filled with water solution of

sulphuric acid Sulfuric acid (American spelling and the preferred IUPAC name) or sulphuric acid ( Commonwealth spelling), known in antiquity as oil of vitriol, is a mineral acid composed of the elements sulfur, oxygen, and hydrogen, with the molecular formu ...

(pH = 3). It is highly recommended to avoid any contact with the water for it might be dangerous. Below Purple Lakelet there is a smaller hollow which is at times filled with waters falling from the pond above – it is called Yellow Lakelet. The colour of Azure Lakelet (635 m; also called: Blue or Emerald) water is connected with the presence of

copper Copper is a chemical element; it has symbol Cu (from Latin ) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkish-orang ...

ion An ion () is an atom or molecule with a net electrical charge. The charge of an electron is considered to be negative by convention and this charge is equal and opposite to the charge of a proton, which is considered to be positive by convent ...

s. Its water, besides its colour, is clean, thus during hot

summer Summer or summertime is the hottest and brightest of the four temperate seasons, occurring after spring and before autumn. At or centred on the summer solstice, daylight hours are the longest and darkness hours are the shortest, with day ...

days there can be seen people bathing in it; water is usually quite cold here, though. Green Lakelet (730 m; also called Black Pond), same as Azure Lakelet owes its colour to copper compounds. Depending on

rainfall Rain is a form of precipitation where water droplets that have condensed from atmospheric water vapor fall under gravity. Rain is a major component of the water cycle and is responsible for depositing most of the fresh water on the Earth. ...

, it temporarily disappears. File:ŻółteJeziorko.JPG, Yellow Lakelet File:Kolorowejeziorko1.jpg, Purple Lakelet File:Błękitne Jeziorko - Wyrobisko po kopalni pirytów.JPG, Azure Lakelet File:MG 2766-HDR(3) (tz).jpg, Azure Lakelet file:Kolorowejeziorko3.jpg, Green Lakelet

References

External links

Kolorowe Jeziorka
(Polish)
Kolorowe Jeziorka
(Polish)

(Polish) {{DEFAULTSORT:Colourful Lakelets Lakes of Lower Silesian Voivodeship