science

Wax Lake

Wax Lake is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Wax Lake rather than just read about it. In short: Wax Lake was a lake in St. Mary Parish, Louisiana that was converted into an outlet channel, the Wax Lake outlet, to divert water from the Atchafalaya River to the Gulf of Mexico.

Key takeaways

Wax Lake belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Wax Lake to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Wax Lake from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Wax Lake was a lake in St. Mary Parish, Louisiana that was converted into an outlet channel, the Wax Lake outlet, to divert water from the Atchafalaya River to the Gulf of Mexico.

History The history of the Wax Lake Outlet, as well as the 20,000 cfs "Charenton Drainage and Navigation Canal", the Avoca Island Cutoff (Avoca Island-Cutoff Bayou drainage channel), and to a lesser extent the Chene, Boeuf, and Black navigation channel, was to provide flood relief to the lower Atchafalaya Basin and Morgan City.

Wax Lake outlet The Wax Lake outlet is an artificial channel that was created by the United States Army Corps of Engineers in 1942 to divert 30 percent of the flow from the Atchafalaya River to the Gulf of Mexico and reduce flood stages at Morgan City, Louisiana. The project design flood flow capacity for the outlet is 440,000 cu ft/s (12,000 m3/s).

Construction In a reversal of normal building procedures construction of the bridges began first, as well as the Bayou Teche floodgates at Calumet. Including the elevated roadways across the flood basin, and the Southern Pacific Railroad swing bridge in Baldwin as well as the three span K-truss bridge in Calumet, a total six bridges were built on dry land between Baldwin and Calumet. The dredging of the approximately 15 miles (24 km) of Wax Lake Outlet, that begins at Six Mile Lake (Yellow Bayou), and the "Charenton Drainage and Navigation Canal", that began at Bayou Teche in Baldwin, both started in 1941 and was completed in 1942.

Wax Lake Delta

The Wax Lake Delta is a river delta in Louisiana that was formed by rapid deposition of sediment following the creation of a canal through Wax Lake off of the Atchafalaya River in 1942. It is roughly 20 miles (32 km) southwest of Morgan City adjacent to the Atchafalaya delta. It receives 34 million tons of sediment per year. In the 64 years between 1941 and 2005, Wax Lake was completely filled with sediment, and the delta prograded approximately 5 miles (8.0 km) into the sea. The Wax Lake Delta's distributary channels form via deposition of mouth bars. The first branch to the west is Campground Pass and further south there are the three main branches, East Pass, Greg Pass, and Main Pass. The mid-channel is eroded and deposited downstream at the mouth of the river (usually during a period of higher water flow), which will create a new path of flow around it. There is then an added deposition upstream, thus causing the river to bifurcate. This results in the familiar dendritic pattern. Because it was entirely created during an observable period and, other than the creation of the canal, was not altered by humans, it has often been in studies of deltaic formation. In the time since Hurricane Katrina, it has also served and as a model for delta regrowth in the Mississippi River Delta region in order to restore habitat and protect against storm surge.

Illustrations

Wax Lake: Aerial view of the Wax Lake Delta in 2005 — Aerial view of the Wax Lake Delta in 2005

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Wax Lake

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Wax Lake claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Wax Lake before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Wax Lake ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Wax Lake

In research: Wax Lake appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Wax Lake in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Wax Lake is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Bodies of water of St. Mary Parish, Louisiana, Gulf of Mexico, Lakes of Louisiana, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Wax Lake outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Wax Lake in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Wax Lake means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Wax Lake out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Wax Lake in simple terms?

Wax Lake was a lake in St. Mary Parish, Louisiana that was converted into an outlet channel, the Wax Lake outlet, to divert water from the Atchafalaya River to the Gulf of Mexico.

Why does Wax Lake matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Wax Lake?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Wax Lake.