Gatun Lake

The Gatúnsee (Spanish: Lago Gatun ) is an artificial lake in Panamá, which was created for the construction of the Panama Canal by damming the Río Chagres. The Gatúnsee including the Gatun Dam and are subject to the hydroelectric power plant - as well as the entire catchment area of ​​the river Chagres - the administration of the Panama Canal Authority ( Autoridad del Canal de Panamá [ ACP] ).

Reservoir

The lake is located on the territory of the two Panamanian provinces of Colón and Panamá. The lake was created 1907-1913 by the building of the Gatun Dam and the associated damming the Río Chagres and thus became the world's largest artificial lake of the time. A 29- km section of the Panama Canal route leads through the Gatúnsee where something had to be dredged only the fairways. It was also important not been excavated by the damming of the Gatúnsees to 26 m above the sea level of the puncture of the channel through the mountains to below the sea level. The traveling through the Panama Canal ships reach him through the locks.

The reservoir has a water surface of 425 km ² ( in another source 423 km ² ) and a memory capacity of 5.2 cubic kilometers, from which calculated an average depth of 12.2 m. The reservoir capacity is approximately equal to the total amount of water that flows in an average year in the Río Chagres. With the water from the dam, the locks are operated; at the locks so no water needs to be pumped up. The lake is around 26 meters above sea level and is now very rich in fish. Among the introduced species are fish from around the world.

The reservoir flooded not only the town of Venta de Cruces, were driven from the from the Old Panama overland zoom goods transported by boat on the Río Chagres to the Caribbean Sea, but also a large part of the old Railway from Panama to Colon. The railroad, however, was for the construction of the Panama Canal absolutely necessary and therefore had to be built over long distances. Also originally a densely forested valley was flooded with rain forest through the artificial lake; outside the designated channel route you can see parts of the flooded vegetation today. Only the trees in the direct fairway of the channel at that time were like. Many former hill in the valley have now become islands. The largest and best known is the Barro Colorado Island, which houses a large research station and has become destination for excursions.

Gatun Dam

Earth dam

The Gatun Dam was built 1907-1913 a few kilometers from the mouth of the Río Chagres in the Caribbean Sea as part of the canal project. It is located immediately southwest next to the Gatun locks at a place where the mountains to the valley of the Chagres a gap of just 2 km left, in the middle of which stood a natural rock. The heaped up on either side of this rock dam is 2,300 m long and 32 m high. At its base it is 640 m wide, at the height of the water level 121 m and at its crown, which is 9 m above the water surface, still 30 meters wide. It contains 17 million cubic meters of fill material. The dam consists of two stone walls with a seal core therebetween. This impermeable core consists of eingespültem soft clay that was present in the vicinity. Finally, the water side of the dam was fastened with large boulders, to break the force of the waves.

At the time of its completion it was the largest dam in the world.

Concrete dam

On the natural rock in the middle of the two embankments, a concrete dam was built with applied steel gates to regulate the outflow from the lake and the spillway. It consists of a semi-circular, at the upper edge 225 m long concrete dam, 14 are usually closed steel gates on the between massive pillars. The air side of the concrete dam is designed as a series of spillways so that the down shooting water in the center of the semicircle are converging from different directions, while its energy in the stilling basin neutralized largely and at normal speed flows through a concrete channel.

Above the upper edge of the concrete dam, which is just 5 m below the normal water level, 14 goals are attached, which are supported on concrete piers and are each 14 x 6 feet tall. The gates can be electrically raised or lowered to control the water level. When the water level of 26.5 m above sea level, the proposed maximum water level, the spillway can discharge 4100 m³ / s, which is more than the largest outflow in the Chagres. In addition, by the underground water pipes at the locks to 1400 m³ / s run. In the long intervals Río Chagres leads still so much water that both the Alajuelasee and the Gatúnsee reach their maximum level. So the shipping traffic had on the Panama Canal from 8 to 9 December 2010, interrupted for 17 hours - for the third time in the 96- year history of the channel.

Hydroelectric power station

At the foot of the dam, on the east side of the discharge channel, is a hydroelectric power plant that generates three generators with a total of 6 MW enough electricity in order to power the locks, the spillway gates, lights, and other devices on the channel.

Gallery

Power plant at Gatun Dam

Gatun Dam - Concrete dam with spillway