Re: when is a lake no longer a pond? or a sea no longer a lake?

Dear Daytona:  Thank you for your question. It's one I've wondered about 
myself more than once. I think you know the difference between a pond and a 
lake, but you are probably looking for a "dictionary" definition. 
Surprisingly, there is no commonly agreed on definition. In one book I 
found this explanation:  "Lakes are generally bigger and deeper....  a 
'pond' is something you could reasonably expect to wade across in a couple 
of minutes without getting completely wet.... a lake is something you would 
not attempt to cross in this manner." The funny thing is, the pond I fished 
in as a child would be a lake according to this definition.

Lakes are isolated from the world ocean, that huge body of salt water that 
covers three-quarters of the globe and surrounds the continents. Even 
though some lakes are salty, they are easily distinguished from seas 
because seas and not lakes are part of the world ocean.

As for the difference between oceans and seas, it is like the difference 
between lakes and ponds. Oceans are wider and deeper. One definition in my 
dictionary says that oceans are the large bodies of water into which the 
world ocean is divided, whereas seas are water bodies of the second rank 
that are more or less land-locked. This seems like a pretty good 
definition to me. If you think about the Mediterranean Sea, you will notice 
that it is mostly surrounded by land, whereas the Atlantic Ocean almost 
surrounds the land instead. Other seas, like the Dead Sea and the Red Sea, 
are also surrounded by land, whereas other oceans, like the Indian and the 
Pacific, are not.

However, there are many other definitions of sea, ocean, lake, and pond, 
and one water body may be given different names by different people. Even 
more commonly, the traditional names for certain water bodies may not fit 
others' definitions. For example, the Sea of Galilee is a fresh water lake. 
The Sevier Dry Lake is only wet after a heavy rain. 

I hope this has helped.

David C. Kopaska-Merkel
Geological Survey of Alabama
PO Box O, Tuscaloosa AL 35486
(205) 349-2852
Email: davidkm@ogb.gsa.tuscaloosa.al.us

The books I used were Webster's 9th New Collegiate Dictionary and 

The Natural History of Lakes, by M. J. Burgis and Pat Morris, 1987, 
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 218 p.