Why is Lake Michigan not a sea?

A sea is generally defined as a large body of salt water that is partly or fully enclosed by land but also has an outlet to the ocean. A lake, on the other hand, is a body of freshwater that is completely surrounded by land, with no direct access to the ocean.



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The lakes have more coastline than the East and West coasts combined! While ocean waves are created by distant storm systems, waves on the Great Lakes are formed by localized winds.

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Some bodies of salt water that are called seas are really lakes. These bodies of water were part of prehistoric oceans or seas. Tectonic shifts blocked their access to larger bodies of water, and they are now completely surrounded by land.

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The United States Environmental Protection Agency, for example, describes them as “vast inland freshwater seas.” A seminal 2017 paper in Limnology and Oceanography, authored by some of the most influential researchers studying the lakes, also refers to them as 'inland seas.

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So you know how when you go for a dip in the ocean and you come out covered in salt crust and with the distinct stench of rotting seaweed? Yeah, that doesn't happen in the Great Lakes. The water may be colder, but it's wonderfully clean.

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“The waves hit you every three to five seconds in the Great Lakes, where in the ocean it might be 10 to 12 seconds between waves,” said Guy Meadows, a Michigan senior research scientist.

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Lake Superior is the world's largest freshwater lake by area (31,700 mi2 /82,100 km2). It is also the coldest and deepest of the Great Lakes, with a maximum depth of 406 meters (1,332 feet). By most measures, it is the healthiest of all the Great Lakes.

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Lake Superior holds a massive volume of water because of its enormous inland basin and the hundreds of rivers that feed it.

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3. Who Owns Lake Superior? Lake Superior is shared by Canada and the United States of America. It has shorelines in the Canadian province of Ontario (Superior Country and Algoma Country), and the American states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan.

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There is an abundance of life and different creatures you might find in Lake Michigan. Whales just aren't one of them. See all of the animals you can find in the lake here.

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Dreyer is the only person who has swum the width of Lake Michigan between Wisconsin and Michigan, having swum from Two Rivers, Wisconsin, to Ludington, Michigan, in 1998. In the 2023 swim, he was attempting to beat his own record by swimming 25 miles further in the route from Milwaukee to Grand Haven.

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Chicago's entire 28-mile Lake Michigan shoreline is man-made. The original sand dune and swale topography has been dramatically altered. Before American settlement, storms changed the shoreline, either by building up or eroding sand.

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Lake Michigan in particular is the roughest of the Great Lakes, and poses a major risk to those thinking of taking a dip.

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“Lake Erie, the smallest and shallowest of the five lakes, is also the filthiest; if every sewage pipe were turned off today, it would take 10 years for nature to purify Erie.

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Geology of Lake Inferior Lake Inferior is an underground lake that is located beneath Lake Superior. It is believed to be formed by a process known as karstification, which is the dissolution of limestone and dolomite rock. This process creates sinkholes, caves, and underground rivers and lakes.

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Lawrence Seaway is a deep draft waterway extending 3,700 km (2,340 miles) from the Atlantic Ocean to the head of the Great Lakes, in the heart of North America.

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