Weathering and Landforms Topics

Streams (Part 4)

Lakes and Floods

Lakes

• Lakes are basins of fresh water into which streams flow and deposit sediment.  There are only two natural lakes in Virginia: Mountain Lake in the Valley and Ridge and Lake Drummond in the Coastal Plain. 

Lakes
Left: Lake Drummond (photograph courtesy of the Virginia Division of Geology and Mineral Resources; right: Mountain Lake (photograph by Phyllis Newbill)

MapLake Drummond, shown above left, is in the Great Dismal Swamp in Chesapeake County, and Mountain Lake, shown above right, is in Giles County.

 

 

Floods

• Floods occur when streams rise over the tops of their channels.  Floods deposit sediment on low-lying areas called floodplains.  Floods can be especially devastating in urban areas.

Hurricane Floyd damage
Hurricane flood damage in Franklin (Photographs by Parvinder Sethi)

MapAs these photographs show, floods from hurricanes in 1999 caused extensive damage and pollution of waters in Franklin, in Southampton County.