Lake Heihai is a small mesosaline lake in

Golmud County Golmud, also #Name, known by various other romanizations, is a county-level city in the Haixi Mongol and Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Qinghai Province, China. It is now the second-largest city in Qinghai and the third largest in the Tibet ...

Haixi Prefecture Haixi Mongolian and Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture ( zh, c=海西蒙古族藏族自治州; ; ), locally also known as Qaidam Prefecture (; ; zh, s=柴达木), is an autonomous prefecture occupying much of the northern half of (as well as part of ...

Qinghai Province Qinghai is an inland province in Northwestern China. It is the largest province of China (excluding autonomous regions) by area and has the third smallest population. Its capital and largest city is Xining. Qinghai borders Gansu on the nort ...

, in western

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

Names

"Lake Heihai" is an English clarification of the

pinyin Hanyu Pinyin, or simply pinyin, officially the Chinese Phonetic Alphabet, is the most common romanization system for Standard Chinese. ''Hanyu'' () literally means 'Han Chinese, Han language'—that is, the Chinese language—while ''pinyin' ...

romanization In linguistics, romanization is the conversion of text from a different writing system to the Latin script, Roman (Latin) script, or a system for doing so. Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written text, and tra ...

of the

Chinese Chinese may refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people identified with China, through nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **Han Chinese, East Asian ethnic group native to China. **'' Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic ...

name meaning . (As with

Qinghai Lake Qinghai Lake is the list of lakes by area, largest lakes of China, lake in China. Located in an endorheic basin in Qinghai Province, to which it gave its name, Qinghai Lake is classified as an alkaline lake, alkaline saline lake, salt lake. The ...

, the Chinese word for "sea" is sometimes used to translate the

Mongolian Mongolian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Mongolia, a country in Asia * Mongolian people, or Mongols * Bogd Khanate of Mongolia, the government of Mongolia, 1911–1919 and 1921–1924 * Mongolian language * Mongolian alphabet * ...

''naɣur'' (), which was once used ambiguously for all large bodies of water.) The lake is also known as ("Jade Pond of the

Queen Mother of the West The Queen Mother of the West, known by #Names, various local names, is a mother goddess in Chinese folk religion, Chinese religion and Chinese mythology, mythology, also worshipped later in neighbouring countries. She is attested from ancient ...

") from an old legendary location in the

Kunlun Mountains The Kunlun Mountains constitute one of the longest mountain chains in Asia, extending for more than . In the broadest sense, the chain forms the northern edge of the Tibetan Plateau south of the Tarim Basin. Located in Western China, the Kun ...

and sometimes confused with

Lake Hala Lake Hala (also: Hala Hu, Har Hu), is a closed lake located at 4078m above sea level in the Qilian mountains, at the northeastern margin of the Tibetan Plateau, Qinghai Province, China. Its surface area is 596 km2. It is a brackish Brack ...

in the

Qilian Mountains The Qilian Mountains (), together with the Altyn-Tagh sometimes known as the Nan Shan, as it is to the south of the Hexi Corridor, is a northern outlier of the Kunlun Mountains, forming the border between Qinghai and the Gansu provinces of n ...

Geography

Lake Heihai is located about south of the city of

Golmud Golmud, also known by various other romanizations, is a county-level city in the Haixi Mongol and Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Qinghai Province, China. It is now the second-largest city in Qinghai and the third largest in the Tibetan P ...

, at an elevation of or above

sea level Mean sea level (MSL, often shortened to sea level) is an mean, average surface level of one or more among Earth's coastal Body of water, bodies of water from which heights such as elevation may be measured. The global MSL is a type of vertical ...

in western

. It lies in a valley roughly long and wide between the

(highest elevation about ) to the south and the Burhan Buda (highest elevation about ) to the north.

Earthquakes An earthquakealso called a quake, tremor, or tembloris the shaking of the Earth's surface resulting from a sudden release of energy in the lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, from those so weak they c ...

are common, as the lake lies near the major long Kunlun Fault. Covering , it stretches about from east to west and north to south. The deepest point is around below its surface. Two main streams feed into the lake, with a catchment of around .

Meltwater Meltwater (or melt water) is water released by the melting of snow or ice, including glaciers, glacial ice, tabular icebergs and ice shelf, ice shelves over oceans. Meltwater is often found during early spring (season), spring when snow packs a ...

flows from two small glaciated areas in the Kunluns. The west is about , the east about ; both appear to have retreated roughly since 1970. The outflow to the east is the source of the Kunlun River, the upper stretch of the

Golmud River The Golmud or Ge'ermu River is a river in Golmud County, Haixi Prefecture, Qinghai Province, China. It flows north from the Kunlun Mountains to Dabusun and (occasionally) West Dabusun Lakes in the central Qarhan Playa in the southeastern Qaid ...

. With mean annual precipitation of and high evaporation rates, the lake's water is

mesohaline Salinity () is the saltiness or amount of 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 dimensionless and equal to ...

. The mean annual temperature is , so much of the surrounding countryside is

permafrost Permafrost () is soil or underwater sediment which continuously remains below for two years or more; the oldest permafrost has been continuously frozen for around 700,000 years. Whilst the shallowest permafrost has a vertical extent of below ...

alpine Alpine may refer to any mountainous region. It may also refer to: Places Europe * Alps, a European mountain range ** Alpine states, which overlap with the European range Australia * Alpine, New South Wales, a Northern Village * Alpine National P ...

grassland A grassland is an area where the vegetation is dominance (ecology), dominated by grasses (Poaceae). However, sedge (Cyperaceae) and rush (Juncaceae) can also be found along with variable proportions of legumes such as clover, and other Herbaceo ...

, supporting dwarf

cinquefoil ''Potentilla'' is a genus containing over 500 species of annual, biennial and perennial herbaceous flowering plants in the rose family, Rosaceae. Potentillas may also be called cinquefoils in English, but they have also been called five fin ...

and

winterfat ''Krascheninnikovia'' is a genus of flowering plants in the subfamily Chenopodioideae of the family Amaranthaceae known as winterfat, so-called because it is a nutritious livestock forage. They are known from Eurasia and western North America. Th ...

shrubs and sparse

sedges The Cyperaceae () are a family of graminoid (grass-like), monocotyledonous flowering plants known as sedges. The family is large; botanists have described some 5,500 known species in about 90 generathe largest being the "true sedges" (genu ...

and

grasses Poaceae ( ), also called Gramineae ( ), is a large and nearly ubiquitous family of monocotyledonous flowering plants commonly known as grasses. It includes the cereal grasses, bamboos, the grasses of natural grassland and species cultivated in ...

. '' Polygonum sibiricum'' occupies moist saline sites close to the lake; drier land further from shore is characterized by '' Kobresia robusta'' on the sandier north side and '' Poa pachyantha'' on the south side.

History

During the

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( ; referred to colloquially as the ''ice age, Ice Age'') is the geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fin ...

, sediment from

glaciers A glacier (; or ) is a persistent body of dense ice, a form of rock, that is constantly moving downhill under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. It acquires ...

in the Kunlun temporarily blocked outflow of the valley's main meltwater stream, forming the present lake. Particularly strong winds weathered and shaped the surrounding rocks from 10080,000 years ago. At its maximum extent, an

Ice Age An ice age is a long period of reduction in the temperature of Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Earth's climate alternates between ice ages, and g ...

glacier filled most of the present valley, which increased its catchment about . At times, probably around 50 kya, 13 kya, and 11.6 kya, Lake Heihai overflowed the present elevation difference to join with the smaller lake to its west, increasing its catchment by another and leaving lacustrine sediments across of now-dry land. During the mid-

Holocene The Holocene () is the current geologic time scale, geological epoch, beginning approximately 11,700 years ago. It follows the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat. The Holocene and the preceding Pleistocene to ...

, from around 84,000 years ago, the climate was wetter and warmer, possibly from increased influence from the

Indian Indian or Indians may refer to: Associated with India * of or related to India ** Indian people ** Indian diaspora ** Languages of India ** Indian English, a dialect of the English language ** Indian cuisine Associated with indigenous peoples o ...

or East Asian monsoon. By the late Holocene, the monsoon was no longer able to reach the lake and its environment became drier and windier again.

Culture

As the largest present lake in the Kunlun Mountains, it has become identified with the "Jade Pond" (also translated as the "Nacre" or "Turquoise Pond" and "Lake of Gems") important in various myths involving the

. Lake Heihai has a stone temple to the Queen Mother and a large slab reading "Xiwangmu Yaochi" ().

Names

Geography

History

Culture

See also

References

Citations

Bibliography

External links