Key facts
- Location
- Manitoba , Ontario , and Saskatchewan in Canada; Minnesota and North Dakota in the U.S.
- Lake type
- proglacial lake
- Etymology
- Louis Agassiz
- Primary inflows
- Laurentide Ice Sheet
- Primary outflows
- Glacial River Warren , the Vermilion River , the Wanapitei River , and the Montreal River valley
- Basin countries
- Canada, United States
- First flooded
- 12,875 years before present
- Max length
- 475 mi (764 km)
- Max width
- 296 mi (476 km)
- Surface area
- 260,000 km (100,000 sq mi)
- Surface elevation
- 335 metres (1,099 ft) 258 metres (846 ft) 325 metres (1,066 ft) 310 metres (1,020 ft)
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- glacial lake
- Named after
- Louis Agassiz
- Country
- United States
- Located in
- North Dakota
- Area
- 440000
- Followed by
- Lake Winnipeg
- Image
- Herman Beach plate06.JPG
- Width
- 476
Show 2 more facts
- Commons category
- Lake Agassiz
- vertical depth
- 200
via Wikidata · CC0
~23 min read
Encyclopedic overview
Lake Agassiz (/ˈæɡəsi/ AG-ə-see) was a large proglacial lake that existed in central North America during the late Pleistocene, fed by meltwater from the retreating Laurentide Ice Sheet at the end of the last glacial period. At its peak, the lake's area was larger than all of the modern Great Lakes combined. It eventually drained into what is now Hudson Bay, leaving behind Lake Winnipeg, Lake Winnipegosis, Lake Manitoba, and Lake of the Woods.
First postulated in 1823 by William H. Keating, it was named by Warren Upham in 1879 after Louis Agassiz, the then recently deceased (1873) founder of glaciology, when Upham recognized that the lake was formed by glacial action.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Lake Agassiz” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.