Lake Tai - Formation

Formation

Scientific studies suggest that Lake Tai's circular structure is the result of a meteor impact based on the discovery of shatter cones, shock metamorphosed quartz, microtektites, and shock metamorphic unloading fractures. Recent science has dated the possible impact crater to be greater than 70 million years old and possibly from the Late Devonian Period. Fossils indicate that Lake Tai was dry land until the ingression of the East China Sea during the Holocene epoch. The growing deltas of the Yangtze and Qiantang rivers eventually sealed off Lake Tai from the sea, and the influx of fresh water from rivers and rains turned Lake Tai into a freshwater lake.

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