has focused on the lake's effects on human populations. Older research published in 1989 indicates that during the early and middle Wisconsin glaciation, there was no freshwater lake in the Estancia Valley. Rather, saline and swampy environments were recorded from drill cores. Lake Estancia would have formed during the late Wisconsin as a saline lake and would have gone through three separate freshwater stages which would be part of the late Lake Estancia superstage. This third freshwater stage would have been the longest-lasting, followed by another freshwater stage, the "Lake Willard" stage, after a period of more saline conditions. The "Lake Willard" stage has yielded a date of 12,460 years; prior to this dating effort "Lake Willard" was considered to be about 8,000 years old and thus of Holocene age. Notes References Sources External links Former lakes of the United States Torrance County, New Mexico Lakes of New Mexico