To explain further, what stops lakes from simply seeping into the dirt, and thus vanishing? As a follow up question, what stops water from getting evaporated, and then the clouds move somewhere else and rain, thus depriving the lake of the water it lost?
In: Earth Science
It’s important to remember, dirt isn’t a normal. It’s organic, created by living things that broke down rock. So if you go down far enough you get rock. Water eroding away at certain rocks creates things like clay, which you can think of as dust that clings to water. Clay doesn’t really flow and so isn’t likely to sink much lower, it’s taken on as much water as it can and so the water above doesn’t move into the ground as quickly as it would through porous rock or soil. It sets up a situation where you’re likely to have as much if not more water coming in as it leaving.
As for evaporation not just drying up any given lake, they are usually at a low point in the surrounding area, meaning it doesn’t have rain directly on the lake to regain the water it loses to evaporation. Of course lakes do evaporate sometimes, but as lake gets deeper it’s going to have less surface area to lose water from compared to the total volume of water.
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