  Lowell Board Administrator Username: Lowell Post Number: 3975 Registered: 10-2003 |
Metro Detroit encompasses hundreds of lakes. A couple of days ago there was as tragic story about a young man drowning in Cass Lake in what was described as depths of 50-80 feet. I was surprised at how deep it was - deeper than the Straits of Detroit aka the Detroit River. Is that the deepest lake around? | ||
Johnlodge Member Username: Johnlodge Post Number: 1041 Registered: 10-2003 |
I know Union Lake is unusually deep for it's size, reaching 110 ft. at it's deepest point. | ||
Gannon Member Username: Gannon Post Number: 9590 Registered: 12-2003 |
It IS spring fed, many years ago a few swimmers drowned and were found next door in Orchard Lake...if memory serves me right. There was also an incident with one or more of the monk/brothers at the school on Old Orchard Trail as well...what is that, St. Mary's of Orchard Lake?! They might've been the same story, not enough caffeine to fire up the wayback synapses this morning. If so, they found the bodies in the other lake, Cass, instead. The event revealed a flowing underground link between the two bodies of water. Have all the inland lakes been charted and depth-sounded?! Any of the larger ones?! I know that Ford Lake in Ypsilanti is pretty well documented, as they have a good number of underwater obstacles that snag the pleasure boaters occasionally. | ||
Lowell Board Administrator Username: Lowell Post Number: 3977 Registered: 10-2003 |
Ford Lake is just the dammed Huron River. So other than the original river channel, I doubt if it is very deep. Also explains all the obstacles from the former flood plain. Interesting theory about the possible underground connection of Cass and Orchard Lakes... | ||
Gravitymachine Member Username: Gravitymachine Post Number: 1720 Registered: 05-2005 |
where i grew up, our deepest lake was Seneca at 600+ ft. the navy even has a nuclear sub in it its so deep. the straits are probably shallow because of all the silt and sediment flowing through them from up river, obviously you don't get that with a lake | ||
Gannon Member Username: Gannon Post Number: 9592 Registered: 12-2003 |
That makes sense, Lowell, since they said most of the problems were the submerged trees. Damned dams. At least we don't have a Guns of Seneca mystery with OUR spring-fed lake. What a sketchy history your birthplace has... | ||
Johnlodge Member Username: Johnlodge Post Number: 1046 Registered: 10-2003 |
"Early white settlers were told by the native Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) that the booms were the sound of the Great Spirit continuing his work of shaping the earth. Contemporary residents, less reverent but no less colorful than their forebears, refer to the sounds as lake farts." LOL | ||
Gsgeorge Member Username: Gsgeorge Post Number: 177 Registered: 08-2006 |
Gannon is correct. There have been many recorded incidents of bodies floating between Cass and Orchard Lakes. I went to school on Orchard Lake with the aforementioned 'monks' and we heard horror stories all the time. It sure didn't keep us away from the lake though. Cass Lake is very, very deep, some 115-130 feet at its deepest. Hammond Lake (on Middlebelt between Orchard Lake Rd and Square Lake Rd) is a spring-fed lake, and one of the sources of the Rouge River. I have heard that it's depth exceeds 200 feet, despite it being very small in overall size. But still, these depths are certainly not unusual, especially for lakes as large as Cass and Orchard. These lake depth maps will give you an idea of the depths of Oakland County's lakes. http://www.michigan.gov/dnr/0, 1607,7-153-30301_31431_31560-6 7601--,00.html | ||
Norwalk Member Username: Norwalk Post Number: 105 Registered: 11-2006 |
Macaday Lake in Waterford is well over 100' deep in some places. I have a 100' of rope on my anchor and I could not reach the bottom | ||
Eboyer Member Username: Eboyer Post Number: 24 Registered: 01-2007 |
Walnut Lake in W.Bloomfield is 150' deep in its deepest parts... | ||
Patrick Member Username: Patrick Post Number: 4676 Registered: 10-2003 |
These lakes were mostly, if not all, carved from receding glaciers am I correct? | ||
Caldogven Member Username: Caldogven Post Number: 84 Registered: 05-2006 |
Is there an Upper Straits or Lower Straits Lake near Orchard Lake? | ||
Beatsworking Member Username: Beatsworking Post Number: 77 Registered: 08-2004 |
There is in fact an Upper, Middle and Lower Straits near Orchard Lake. Upper is due West of Orchard and Middle and Lower follow to the west/northwest. | ||
Gsgeorge Member Username: Gsgeorge Post Number: 179 Registered: 08-2006 |
There is also an Upper and Lower Long Lake near Orchard Lake. Patrick, the lakes were formed back in the Pleistocene epoch (~15,000 years ago) as the Laurentide Ice Sheet advanced and retreated several times. This ice sheet is responsible for the most recent geology of the entire Great Lakes region, from the soil composition of the Lower Peninsula to the shape of the Great Lakes themselves. | ||
Ray1936 Member Username: Ray1936 Post Number: 1637 Registered: 01-2005 |
"Patrick, the lakes were formed back in the Pleistocene epoch." Me and Jjaba can confirm that. We wuz there. | ||
Gistok Member Username: Gistok Post Number: 4795 Registered: 08-2004 |
... and they have the cave paintings to prove it...  One intersting thing about Lake St. Clair is that besides the shipping channels, the deepest part of the lake is only a shallow 21 feet deep. | ||
Goblue Member Username: Goblue Post Number: 129 Registered: 03-2007 |
Need to point out that the depth limit for a recreational diver is 120 ft...the depths of the Detroit area lakes are really not all that deep. I did my certification dive in Gull Lake near Kalamazoo about 25 years ago...only went down about 30 ft....but...there was a well preserved Model T down there...it must have gone through the ice a lot of years ago. | ||
Gsgeorge Member Username: Gsgeorge Post Number: 180 Registered: 08-2006 |
wow! I can't imagine what's at the bottom of Lake St. Clair, especially near the Pointes. Anyone willing to bet there are a few cases of unopened liquor from Prohibition? | ||
Courtney Member Username: Courtney Post Number: 151 Registered: 06-2004 |
At the very least, there is a church underneath the water in Lake St Clair. I have always wanted to get my diving certs just to dive Lake Jocassee - which was made "famous" by being in the movie "Deliverance" before it was full. It was our favourite lake for boating and I always wondered just what was in the 150+ft (up to 326ft) of water between the bottom and my feet while swimming. | ||
Goblue Member Username: Goblue Post Number: 130 Registered: 03-2007 |
Some unopened cases of Canadian liquor would be a good bet to be somewhere on the bottom of Lake St. Clair...probably under several feet of mud though. Had never heard the story of the submerged church and cemetary...they must have moved the caskets/bodies before the water came up?? Wish I had known about it when I lived in the Detroit area. | ||
Exmotowner Member Username: Exmotowner Post Number: 348 Registered: 06-2005 |
Pleasant lake in W. Bloomfield has a huge drop off going out to the dock. Anyone know the depth of this? Just curious, I used to swim across the lake as a kid. (always with someone else). | ||
Detroitstar Member Username: Detroitstar Post Number: 722 Registered: 01-2006 |
I hear that Lake I96 is getting deeper by the moment. | ||
Ventura67 Member Username: Ventura67 Post Number: 146 Registered: 12-2003 |
All of our natural inland lakes are "kettle lakes" or essentially potholes in the earth. Imagine giant chunks of glacier that calved off the receding front and were surrounded by sediments. When they melted they left huge depressions in the glacial till (now our modern soil) that were filled with pure water from the melting chunks of glacier. Any depth chart gives a rough idea of what the shape of that chunk of ice was and how deep into the till it was buried. As time has gone on organic matter from dying plants has and continues to shrink these lakes. They were much bigger and deeper in the centuries that followed the glacier's retreat. Some of the lakes are completely gone now and are our current wetlands, former lakes that were filled to capacity with organic matter. Humans now work on destroying most of the remaining pristine lakes with housing, septic fields and roads built too close to them and boats that pollute the water, shred the aquatic life and spread invasive species. Oh, sorry, I got too dramatic there. I love swimming and paddling in the few lakes that are surrounded by state land and are free from development, in as natural of a state as possible. | ||
Gsgeorge Member Username: Gsgeorge Post Number: 183 Registered: 08-2006 |
good one Detroitstar haha! | ||
Perfectgentleman Member Username: Perfectgentleman Post Number: 1797 Registered: 03-2006 |
quote: Actually the tax revenue collected from the housing around lakes helps pay to preserve them. Those that have lakefront property have incentive to see that the lake stays healthy to protect their investment. I was just in Kent Lake and there is no housing on it, the lake is fine but no better than other area lakes that are surrounded by homes. In fact at one point it was quite dirty. | ||
Ventura67 Member Username: Ventura67 Post Number: 147 Registered: 12-2003 |
You're right, Kent Lake would be no better than those surrounded by homes because its born of the same waters. That is because Kent Lake is nothing more than damned up Huron River water which suffers heavily from development in its upper reaches, Commerce and Bloomfield Townships, for example. Its headwaters are all those lakes that are so heavily developed like Cass, Orchard and Pontiac Lakes. Healthy lakes as in property investments and healthy lakes as in natural preservation are two completely different worlds in my opinion. Kinda like lawn vs. woodland. |
