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The breathtaking scenery at Taal Lake, on the Philippine island of Luzon, makes it one of the country’s most popular tourist destinations. Located just thirty miles from Manila, Taal is the Philippines’ equivalent to Oregon’s famous Crater Lake, because it fills the caldera of a massive prehistoric volcano. But its geologic history is even more bizarre than that of its Oregonian cousin. Unlike Crater Lake, Taal Lake was once part of the ocean—it was an arm of Balayan Bay, which opens to the South China Sea. It’s not unheard of for bays to become lakes. After the last Ice Age, for example, it took centuries for the earth to rebound to its pre-glacier elevations in many places. Even Lake Ontario was part of the Atlantic Ocean for a while. But Taal Lake was part of the ocean just a few hundred years ago! During the 18th century, a series of eruptions filled in the entrance to the inlet, isolating it from the ocean except for one narrow river. Rainfall over the past three hundred y