- Lake Illawarra
Lake Illawarra (coord|34|31|S|150|50|E [ [http://www.ga.gov.au/bin/gazd01?rec=56202 Lake Illawarra page] at
Geoscience Australia ] ) is a large coastal lagoon, near the city ofWollongong about 100 km south ofSydney ,New South Wales .The towns of
Dapto and Shellharbour are near the lake, which receives the runoff from theIllawarra escarpment through theMacquarie Rivulet .Matthew Flinders andGeorge Bass called the lake Tom Thumb's Lagoon on Flinders' chart, named after their little boat the "Tom Thumb", when they were there in March1796 . [gutenberg|no=12929|name=A Voyage to Terra Australis|author=Matthew Flinders ] [Miriam Estensen, "The Life of George Bass", Allen and Unwin, 2005, ISBN 1-74114-130-3, page 53.]Lake Illawarra has a narrow tidal entrance to the sea at
Windang . The lake is shallow (2-3 metres average) and vulnerable to pollution and urban run-off. It was used as a source of cooling water for the now-closed Tallawarra Power Station at Mount Brown.Birds found at the lake include
pelican s,cormorant s,musk duck s,hoary headed grebe s,black swan s, black ducks, grey teal ducks,heron s,ibis es andspoonbill s. [ [http://www.wollongong.nsw.gov.au/library/localinfo/dapto/ Dapto - local area information] ]References
* [http://www.lia.nsw.gov.au/ Lake Illawarra Authority]
* [http://www.waterwise.nsw.gov.au/estuaries/inventory/illawarra.shtml Estuaries in NSW - Lake Illawarra]Further reading
* [http://www.publish.csiro.au/?paper=MF9940977 Ash distribution and metal contents of Lake Illawarra bottom sediments]
* [http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=2846945 Spatial variation of sediment-bound zinc, lead, copper and rubidium in Lake Illawarra, a coastal lagoon in eastern Australia]
* [http://www.springerlink.com/content/u68680p02lr52238/ Inorganic nutrient and oxygen fluxes across the sediment–water interface in the inshore macrophyte areas of a shallow estuary (Lake Illawarra, Australia)]
* [http://www.publish.csiro.au/?paper=MF9870795 Ostracoda in Lake Illawarra: Environmental factors, assemblages and systematics.]
* [http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=18073428 Organic matter and benthic metabolism in Lake Illawarra, Australia]
* [http://www.jcronline.org/perlserv/?request=get-abstract&doi=10.2112%2F03-0110.1 Holocene Sea Level Fluctuations and the Sedimentary Evolution of a Barrier Estuary: Lake Illawarra, New South Wales, Australia]
* [http://www.lia.nsw.gov.au/facts/data_report.pdf Lake Illawarra Data Compilation and Assessment]
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