Abraham Lake is an artificial lake on North Saskatchewan River in western Alberta, Canada. Abraham Lake has a surface area of 53.7 km2 (20.7 sq mi) and a length of 32 km (20 mi).It was built on the upper course of the North Saskatchewan River, in the foothills of the Canadian Rockies. It lines David Thompson Highway between Saskatchewan River Crossing and Nordegg.
Abraham Lake was created in 1972, with the construction of the Bighorn Dam. The Government of Alberta sponsored a contest to name the lake in February 1972, during the final stages of construction of the Bighorn dam. Students across the province were asked to submit names taking into consideration "historical significance, prominent persons, geography and topography, and the value of the lake." It was named for Silas Abraham, an inhabitant of the Saskatchewan River valley in the nineteenth century.
Although man-made, the lake has the blue color of other glacial lakes in the Rocky Mountains, which is caused by rock flour as in other glacial lakes.
The Cline River Heliport is located on the western shore of the lake.
It may be man-made but it flaunts the same myrtle green in the water and the same mountain peaks around the lake that other natural, liquid wonders that dot the Canadian Rockies landscape provide.
But Abraham Lake has something the others do not.
When Abraham Lake is frozen, much older methane from deep beneath the Earth’s crust and ancient oceans remains trapped at the bottom of the lake as a white rock substance known as methane hydrate. As the lake starts to warm up, the methane escapes and comes to the surface. Combined with the methane from decomposition, this creates the amazing-looking frozen columns seen in these photographs.
The effect is compounded by the fact Abraham is not a natural lake but is the result of the damming of the North Saskatchewan River in northern Alberta in 1972. The result is extra organic material, such as trees, grasses and plants that would normally not be found on a lake bed, decomposing and creating even more methane gas.
As climate change takes its toll in northern lakes and seas, scientists fear that methane that has been frozen by permafrost will slowly start to leak into the atmosphere, pumping out as much as 10 times the amount of methane that is currently in the atmosphere will come out of frozen lakes such as Abraham.
