Primary inflows Catchment area 1,267 km (489 sq mi) Max. length 23 km (14 mi) Area 157 km² Length 23 km Outflow location Pilmaiquén River | Primary outflows Pilmaiquén River Basin countries Chile Max. width 11.5 km (7.1 mi) Surface elevation 212 m | |
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Similar Puyehue‑Cordón Caulle, Antillanca ski resort, Todos los Santos Lake, Casablanca, Antillanca Group | ||
Puyehue Lake ([puˈjewe]), Mapudungun: puye, small fish and hue, place is an Andean piedmont lake located in the border of Los Lagos Region with Los Ríos Region of Chile. Puyehue is a lake of glacial origin, several times during the pleistocene glaciations the lake depression was occupied by a large glacier lobe of the Patagonian Ice Sheet forming thus a series of moraines along its western shores. The lake has an east-west elongated shape with Fresia Island in the middle and two minor peninsulas pointing toward the island, one from the north and one from the south. The lake has remarkably smooth coasts with only one inlet of significance; the Futacullín Bay on the south.
Map of Puyehue Lake, Chile
As most other lakes of southern Chile, Puyehue Lake acts as a sediment trap for material from the Andes. Sediment cores taken from Puyehue Lake in 2001 and 2002 have been interpreted as supporting the existence of the Little Ice Age in the Southern Hemisphere. A longer sediment core from the same site was used to reconstruct the evolution of the lake and its drainage basin during the last 18,000 years.
The 2011 Puyehue eruption polluted the waters of Nilahue and Golgol rivers, killing fishes. Pyroclastic material reached Puyehue Lake through river transport, which resulted in the deposition of a layer of volcanic ash at the bottom of the lake.
In the 16th century the lake was known to the Spanish as Llobén, from the Huilliche word of llofën meaning "abundant and contineous rain".