The Caribbean island of Trinidad is home to the world's largest deposit of natural asphalt, called Pitch Lake.
The surface of the lake is a mostly solid carpet of asphalt that can be walked on, attracting some 200,000 tourists each year.
The lake is also mined for asphalt — called "pitch" in its crude, unrefined form — sold around the globe for the use in the paving highways, race tracks, bridge decks, and airport runways.
This is Pitch Lake. It may look like a giant parking lot, but make no mistake, it is the only commercial viable source of natural asphalt in the world.
Source: Trinidad Lake Asphalt
The lake is located next to the village of La Brea, meaning "tar" in Spanish. It measures 250 feet deep at the center and covers a surface area of around 100 acres, or about 75 football fields.
Source: Trinidad Lake Asphalt
The formation of natural asphalt lakes is not fully understood (Los Angeles' La Brea Tar Pits and Venezuela's Lake Guanoco are other examples of natural asphalt-like deposits). Scientists think Pitch Lake was created when the Caribbean continental plate forced its way below the edge of another plate. This pushed up oil deposits from deep within the earth to the surface.
Source: USA Today
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