The tutor shares a definition he stumbled upon.

I’ve never thought about it much, but always believed I knew the difference between a lake and a pond. However, the guessing is over for any who may be in doubt; I encountered the distinction between them in a biology text the other day:

Throughout a pond, light penetrates full depth, so plants live everywhere along the bottom. By contrast, a lake contains water deeper than light penetrates; parts of its bottom do not host plants.

Some of my reading suggests that sunlight can penetrate 25 to 100 metres deep in water. Therefore, a lake must be quite deep indeed – possibly 80 to 330 feet – unless its water is cloudy enough to block sunlight at shallower depth.

Many inland bodies of water I would have called lakes are, I suppose, ponds.

I’ll be sharing more of my biology browsings in future posts:)

Source:

Ritter, Bob. Nelson Biology. Scarborough: Nelson Canada, 1996.

lakeaccess.org

Jack of Oracle Tutoring by Jack and Diane, Campbell River, BC.