[citation needed] The thickness of sediment beneath the lake exceeds 250 metres (820 ft), according to a Bureau of Mineral Resources Canberra drilling programme in the 1982/83 summer.

The oldest sediments, which lie some distance above the bedrock, were dated at 4–5 million years using spore and pollen analysis and magnetic-reversal stratigraphy.

Lake George is the site of an experimental scientific wave behaviour platform established by researchers from the Civil Engineering department of the Australian Defence Force Academy in Canberra.

Lake George has been a popular fishery at times, after high water levels and stockings of fish.

In 2010, Canberra artists Alan and Julie Aston installed a herd of zebra sculptures on the lake adjacent to the highway stop commemorating Kevin "Dasher" Wheatley VC, used as a "Driver Reviver" site.

The lake lies not far from the traditional lands of the Walbanga people (a group of the Yuin from the upper Shoalhaven catchment), to the east.

[7] Based on the recurring shapes of the stone artefacts, these workshops have been interpreted as a place where broken composite tools were being rehafted.

The first European to visit the lake was Joseph Wild on 19 August 1820,[10] and it was named for King George III on 28 October 1820 by Governor Lachlan Macquarie, who was touring the area as part of a Royal Commission inquiring into the condition of the Colony.

[12] A separate body of water—Murray's Lagoon—once existed close to the northern end of the lake,[13] adjoining the property, Ajamatong, owned by Terence Aubrey Murray.

In the mid-1830s Murray used convict labour to build a 50 m long, stone-lined canal, excavated to up to 4m into the ground, with the aim of connecting the two bodies of water.

In their search for water to survive in, the Murray cod flocked into the mouths of the few small creeks feeding the lake and died there by the thousands.

In 1886, a site was reserved for a village to be known as Murray, on the northern shoreline of the lake, just west of the landform known as Kenny's Point.

In the early 1900s, an area immediately to the south-east of the lake and north-north-east of Bungendore, was surveyed as a possible site for the capital city of Australia.

During World War II, a wooden 'dummy' ship was floated on the lake and used for bombing practice by the Royal Australian Air Force.

[citation needed] On 8 July 1956 five cadets from the Royal Military College, Duntroon died due to hypothermia in a yachting accident.

Due to the drought in New South Wales, Lake George dried out completely in November 2002, and remained so until February 2010 when it started to refill.

A former grazier's homestead at Silver Wattle Point now operates as a religious retreat and Quaker meeting house.

Located in the eastern section of the locality close to the town of Bungendore are some industrial facilities, including a sand quarry and an electrical substation serving the Capital Wind Farm.