Lake Rukwa


Lake Rukwa is an endorheic lake in the Rukwa Valley of southwestern Tanzania.

Geography

The alkaline Lake Rukwa lies midway between Lake Tanganyika and Lake Malawi at an elevation of about, in a parallel branch of the rift system. Almost half of the lake lies in Uwanda Game Reserve.

Hydrology

The lake has seen large fluctuations in its size over the years, due to varying inflow of streams. Currently it is about long and averages about wide, making it about in size. In 1929 it was only about long, but in 1939 it was about long and wide. During the early rifting of this part of Africa, the basin of Lake Rukwa may at times have been part of a much larger basin which also included the basins of Lake Tanganyika with Lake Malawi; ancient shorelines suggest a final date of overflow into Lake Tanganyika of 33,000BP. For overflow to occur again, the lake's elevation would need to exceed 900 meters. Overflow into Lake Malawi is not possible now, since the pass between the two basin stands at over 2000 meters elevation.
There is an accumulation of selected heavy metals of Zinc, Mercury, Copper, Lead, Chromium and Nickel in sediment, water and muscle tissues of Clarias gariepinus and Oreochromis esculentus fish was done in Lake Rukwa.

Helium discovery

In 2016, an estimated 1.53 billion cubic meters volume of helium gas was discovered in Lake Rukwa worth $3.5 billion.