Lake water chemistry vs river water chemistry?

Answer 1

It all depends on the rate of flow... in a lake the water is calm, and the deeper the lake water is the less dissolved gas content changes- a lake has various layers, in it colder denser water stays at the bottom (below the warmer less dense water) - these layers tend not to mix so as the bottom layers of water have the dissolved oxygen removed from the water by biologic processes (decompostion of dead plant material by microbes, fish beatheing, etc.) the oxygen is depleated and the water becomes anoxic (oxygen deprived) this allows for the accumulation of biologic matter in vast quanties (think of fresh water swamps- the leaves don't decompose) after a good amount of sediment fills the lake up from various depositional episodes the bio-matter will become peat, and given even more time it can become coal or 'oil shale' like in certain ancient lake deposits out west (ex: Green River Basin, Piceance Basin of Colorado, etc.) In some extreme cases of super anoxic lakes the carbon dioxide levels are dangerously high (as in go down there and the acidity of the water will start to eat your scuba gear and you!) but this usually happens in lakes in volcanic systems (lake Nyos in Cameroon (Africa) is probably the most famous one in the world: the CO2 levels got so high in the lake (the gas seeped up out of the ground at the lakes bottom) than on August 21, 1986 when the water layers at the bottom of the lake were disturbed (probably an earthquake or land slide) the water column destabilized (like when you open a bottle of Coca-Cola after it has been shaken it explodes) releasing almost all of the CO2 gas dissolved in the lake… because CO2 gas much denser than regular air it poured down the valley that the lake was in suffocating 1700 people and countless live stock over a path of 15 miles…) also for lakes... generally rivers or streams pour sediments into them at high or moderate rates, once the speed of the water slows the suspended sediments drop out (larger grains (slits) at first then smaller (clays))this will cause a difference in stream vs. lake water chemistry The location of a lake is also very important if it is in the middle of a dranage system that does no release its water (like the Great Salt Lake of Utah or the Caspian Sea) the salt concentrations are very high, as rocks erode salt is released at a fairly constant rate, and if water is evaporating from said lake then the salt that is being put in it at very small amounts will become concentrated. for steams the chemistry the water is turbulent so lots suspended sediments an a fair amount of gasses like oxygen from the air are dissolved in it, also if the water is slightly acidic it can dissolve limestone (calcium carbonate). bicarbonate ions (HCO3-) and carbonate ions (CO32-) together make up almost 50% of total dissolved solids in average river water By the way this was a geology question, but chemistry has a lot to do with it … Make sure you find all of this data for yourself if you are doing a report, use wikipedia to point you in the right direction or use google scholar (this gives you real sources not blog garbage)- not saying this is or anything... http://scholar.google.com/schhp?ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4GGIK_en___US273&hl=en&tab=ws

Answer 2

river water is running almost continually, and the water in a lake is virtually still, except for disruption of the surface or the magnetic pull of the moon (for large lake).