Qualla: Lake Bermudez

Lake Bermudez: Introduction

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. Most tar pits announce themselves. La Brea in Los Angeles is a fenced-off spectacle; Trinidad's Pitch Lake gleams like a dark mirror. Lake Guanoco -- also called Lake Bermudez -- hides. Covered in vegetation, its 445 hectares of natural asphalt lie quietly in Venezuela's Sucre state, about 25 kilometers east of the Gulf of Paria. It is the second-largest natural tar pit on Earth, containing an estimated 75 million barrels of crude, and you could walk past it without knowing what churned beneath your feet.

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Image: Unknown author | Public domain

Lake Bermudez: A Lake That Is Not a Lake

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit NASA, Public domain. Only five natural asphalt lakes exist in the world: Pitch Lake in Trinidad and Tobago, La Brea Tar Pits and McKittrick Tar Pits in California, Carpinteria Tar Pits also in California, and Lake Guanoco. What sets Guanoco apart, beyond its size, is its camouflage. While the others ...

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Image: NASA | Public domain

Lake Bermudez: Deep Time, Rising Oil

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit NASA, Public domain. All natural asphalt lakes were likely formed during the Pleistocene epoch, and they share a common geological mechanism. They are the largest examples of natural oil seeps, created when petroleum migrating upward through rock -- driven by buoyancy, since oil is lighter than groun...

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Image: NASA | Public domain

Lake Bermudez: Caulked Canoes and Corporate Wars

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit NASA, Public domain. Long before European prospectors arrived, the Warao people knew what lay beneath the vegetation. They harvested the asphalt to caulk their canoes, waterproofing the hulls for journeys through the rivers and coastal waters of eastern Venezuela. When industrial interests discovered...

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Image: NASA | Public domain

Lake Bermudez: Waiting in the Vegetation

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit NASA, Public domain. By 1998, the area around Lake Guanoco was described as abandoned and underdeveloped, still waiting for asphalt production to restart. The infrastructure that once served the mining operations had decayed. The vegetation had reclaimed whatever ground the machines had cleared. It i...

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Image: NASA | Public domain