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Lake Vanda is a lake
Lake

A lake is a terrain feature , a body of liquid on the surface of a world that is localized to the bottom of basin and moves slowly if it moves at all....
 in Wright Valley
Wright Valley

The Wright Valley is the central one of the three large Dry Valleys in the Transantarctic Mountains, located west of McMurdo Sound at approximately ....
, Victoria Land
Victoria Land

Victoria Land is a region of Antarctica bounded on the east by the Ross Sea and on the west by Wilkes Land. It was discovered by Captain James Clark Ross in January 1841 and named after the Victoria of the United Kingdom....
, Ross Dependency
Ross Dependency

The Ross Dependency comprises an area of Antarctica claimed by New Zealand. It is defined by a Circular sector originating at the South Pole, passing along longitudes 160th meridian east to 150th meridian west, and terminating at latitude 60th parallel south....
, Antarctica
Antarctica

Antarctica is Earth's southernmost continent, overlying the South Pole. It is situated in the Antarctica of the southern hemisphere, almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle, and is surrounded by the Southern Ocean....
. The lake is 5 km long and has a maximum depth of 69 m. On its shore, New Zealand
New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses , and numerous Islands of New Zealand, most notably Stewart Island/Rakiura and the Chatham Islands....
 maintained Vanda Station
Vanda Station

Vanda Station was an Antarctic research base in the western highlands of the Ross Dependency, specifically on the shore of Lake Vanda, at the mouth of Onyx River, in the Wright Valley....
 from 1968 to 1995. Lake Vanda is a hypersaline
Salinity

Salinity is the saltiness or dissolved salt content of a body of water. Salinity in Australian English and North American English may also refer to the salt in soil ....
 lake with a salinity more than ten times that of seawater, more than the salinity of the Dead Sea
Dead Sea

For the Brian Keene book of the same name, see Dead Sea The Dead Sea is a salt lake between Israel and the West Bank to the west, and Jordan to the east....
, and perhaps even more than of Lake Assal (Djibouti), which is the world's most saline lake outside of Antarctica. Lake Vanda is also meromictic
Meromictic

A meromictic lake has layers of water which do not intermix. In ordinary, "holomictic" lakes, at least once each year there is a physical mixing of the surface and the deep waters....
, which means that the deeper waters of the lake don't mix with the shallower waters.






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Encyclopedia


Lake Vanda is a lake
Lake

A lake is a terrain feature , a body of liquid on the surface of a world that is localized to the bottom of basin and moves slowly if it moves at all....
 in Wright Valley
Wright Valley

The Wright Valley is the central one of the three large Dry Valleys in the Transantarctic Mountains, located west of McMurdo Sound at approximately ....
, Victoria Land
Victoria Land

Victoria Land is a region of Antarctica bounded on the east by the Ross Sea and on the west by Wilkes Land. It was discovered by Captain James Clark Ross in January 1841 and named after the Victoria of the United Kingdom....
, Ross Dependency
Ross Dependency

The Ross Dependency comprises an area of Antarctica claimed by New Zealand. It is defined by a Circular sector originating at the South Pole, passing along longitudes 160th meridian east to 150th meridian west, and terminating at latitude 60th parallel south....
, Antarctica
Antarctica

Antarctica is Earth's southernmost continent, overlying the South Pole. It is situated in the Antarctica of the southern hemisphere, almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle, and is surrounded by the Southern Ocean....
. The lake is 5 km long and has a maximum depth of 69 m. On its shore, New Zealand
New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses , and numerous Islands of New Zealand, most notably Stewart Island/Rakiura and the Chatham Islands....
 maintained Vanda Station
Vanda Station

Vanda Station was an Antarctic research base in the western highlands of the Ross Dependency, specifically on the shore of Lake Vanda, at the mouth of Onyx River, in the Wright Valley....
 from 1968 to 1995. Lake Vanda is a hypersaline
Salinity

Salinity is the saltiness or dissolved salt content of a body of water. Salinity in Australian English and North American English may also refer to the salt in soil ....
 lake with a salinity more than ten times that of seawater, more than the salinity of the Dead Sea
Dead Sea

For the Brian Keene book of the same name, see Dead Sea The Dead Sea is a salt lake between Israel and the West Bank to the west, and Jordan to the east....
, and perhaps even more than of Lake Assal (Djibouti), which is the world's most saline lake outside of Antarctica. Lake Vanda is also meromictic
Meromictic

A meromictic lake has layers of water which do not intermix. In ordinary, "holomictic" lakes, at least once each year there is a physical mixing of the surface and the deep waters....
, which means that the deeper waters of the lake don't mix with the shallower waters. It is only one of the many saline lakes in the ice-free valleys of the Transantarctic Mountains
Transantarctic Mountains

The three largest mountain ranges on the Antarctic continent are the Transantarctic Mountains, the West Antarctica Ranges, and the East Antarctica Ranges....
. The largest river
River

A river is a natural stream of water, usually freshwater, flowing toward an ocean, a lake, or another stream. In some cases a river flows into the ground or dries up completely before reaching another body of water....
 of Antarctica, Onyx River
Onyx River

The Onyx River is a meltwater stream which flows westward through the Wright Valley from Wright Lower Glacier and Lake Brownworth at the foot of the glacier to Lake Vanda, during a few months of the Antarctica summer....
, flows West, inland, into Lake Vanda. There is a meteorological station at the mouth of the river. There are no fish in Onyx River or Lake Vanda. The only life is microorganisms.

Lake Vanda Station
Vanda Station

Vanda Station was an Antarctic research base in the western highlands of the Ross Dependency, specifically on the shore of Lake Vanda, at the mouth of Onyx River, in the Wright Valley....
 was well known for The Royal Lake Vanda Swim Club. Visitors to Lake Vanda Station could dip into the high salinity waters when the icecap edge melted out during summer to form a 'moat', and receive a Royal Lake Vanda Swim Club shoulder patch. Vanda staff would assist the melt by hacking out a 'pool'. Many dignitaries and politicians were inducted into the club, The dip had to be naked (Rule 1), complete immersion (Rule 4), witnessed by a 'Vandal' (Vanda Station staffer) and with no restrictions on photography (Rule 6) to qualify. Rule 10 allowed a natural figleaf, but it had to be natural and also naturally green without artificial aid.

During the colder months the moat refreezes, generally to a totally transparent clear ice metres deep.

Vanda Station was removed in 1995 as lake levels rose possibly due to global warming, and is replaced by a shelter, Lake Vanda Hut, that is periodically staffed by 2-8 stream researchers.




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