THE POND OF GOD: THE LARGEST LANDSLIDE-DAMMED LAKE IN ROMANIA

On the Romania territory, the East Flysch Carpathians represent a typical European landslide region. Usually, the natural dam lakes formed here by landslide processes have a small size and a short lifespan. The main natural dam lakes formed on the Eastern Carpathians territory which did not fail ar Cuejdel and Red lakes. The Red Lake (surface - 12.1 10(4)m(2); volume - 721,404 m(3); max. depth - 10.5 m) formed in 1837 is the oldest landslide-dammed lake in Carpathians Mts. and Cuejdel Lake (surface - 13.95 10(4)m(2); volume - 925,347 m(3); max. depth - 16.5 m) is the youngest with two formation stage: stage 1. year 1978, when a small lake appeared; stage 2. year 1991, when a big landslide occurred and the landslide body totally blocked the Cuejdel valley. However, the recent investigations carried out in the NE of Romania, indicate that the largest landslide-dammed lake is the Pond of God from Moldavian Plain (surface - 38.86 10(4)m(2); volume - 1,476,300 m(3); max. depth - 3.8 m). The lake was formed in 1971 by a large landslide-dam in the upper part of the Puturosu catchment basin (left tributary of Jijia River). The genesis of this lake has been difficult to establish so far because the landslide and the natural dam area were hydro-technically consolidated. The main objective of this study is to mention and describe for the first time in the national and international limnological literature the genesis, evolution and the morpho-bathymetric parameters of the lacustrine basin and landslide-dam area.