“A 2011 record-breaking algae bloom in Lake Erie was triggered by long-term agricultural practices coupled with extreme precipitation, followed by weak lake circulation and warm temperatures, scientists have discovered.” Quoted from the National Science Foundation press release.
“A new video from the U.S. Geological Survey illustrates Lake Mead’s healthy and robust ecosystem and the aquatic science research and monitoring that happens on the lake.” Quoted from the USGS video release.
This isn’t geology… but a guy in Maine makes a living by finding ancient logs that have been on the bottoms of lakes – usually for centuries. He then hoists them up to his pontoon boat, tows them to a mill and saws them into exotic lumber that sells at premium prices.
The McLaughlin Crater on Mars is about 57 miles in diameter and about 1.4 miles deep. Researchers believe that it may have once been filled with water supplied by springs.
Water levels on the Great Lakes were at December record lows last month, causing problems at some ports and requiring some cargo ships to lighten their loads.
The British Antarctic Survey team encountered drilling difficulties in their attempt to drill through 3 kilomters of Antarctic ice and into the subglacial waters of Lake Ellsworth. They will return to the UK to decide if a new attempt is possible.
USGS has published: Science to Support the Understanding of Ohio’s Water Resources. It is a factsheet that summarizes many sources of data for water studies in Ohio.
“Meteorology is the driving force for lake internal heating, cooling, mixing, and circulation. Thus continued global warming will affect the lake thermal properties, water level, internal nutrient loading, nutrient cycling, food-web characteristics, fish-habitat, aquatic ecosystem, and other important features of lake limnology.” Quoted from the USGS press release.
About 1500 years ago a tsunami triggered by a delta collapse, traveled across Lake Geneva and swamped the area that is now the city of Geneva, Switzerland.
“Researchers use dramatic changes in sediment storage rates in the Danube River delta to determine that human impact upon the Black Sea began long before the Industrial Era.” Quoted from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution press release.
A short report from the Utah Geological Survey will introduce you to the dynamic water chemistry of the Great Salt Lake. It explains how the salinity is a function of lake level and how two arms of the lake have independent salinity because they are separated by a railroad causeway built in 1959!
When you visit check out the interesting graph on Page 6.
Perhaps you have learned how carbon dioxide has caused lake eruptions in Cameroon. Here is a story about how CO2 caused a can of soda to explode.
“The expansion of water as it freezes is important to soda detonation not because it puts pressure on the can but because it puts pressure on an increasingly cramped reservoir of gaseous C02, which can change volume more radically and store far more energy than pressurized ice.” Quoted from the MSN article.
“From 1900-2010, freshwater fish species in North America went extinct at a rate 877 times faster than the rate found in the fossil record, while estimates indicate the rate may double between now and 2050.”
Prolonged drought and evaporating water has reduced the size of Laguna Mar Chiquita, a shallow lake in Argentina. The size has been reduced from about 2,230 square miles down to about 760 square miles, exposing nearly 1500 square miles of lake sediment to ablation.
“Intense warm climate intervals–warmer than scientists thought possible–have occurred in the Arctic over the past 2.8 million years. That result comes from the [...] longest sediment cores ever retrieved on land [...] obtained from beneath remote, ice-covered Lake El’gygytgyn in the northeastern Russian Arctic.” Quoted from the NSF press release.
Kelimutu is a volcano with three summit lakes on Flores Island, Indonesia. The lakes are typically different colors and often change colors. These color variations are though to be caused by fumaroles below the lakes which causes changes in water chemistry.
“The Omo Delta, at the north end of Lake Turkana, a lake now located mainly in Kenya. Left: February 1, 1973. Right: January 24, 2005 to February 12, 2006. In 1973, the delta was contained entirely within the boundaries of Ethiopia. By 2005-2006, the southernmost point of the delta had moved roughly 12 kilometers (7 miles) to the south, and had crossed the Ethiopia-Kenya border.” Quoted from the NASA image release.
“The expansion of massive salt evaporation projects on the Dead Sea are clearly visible in this time series of images taken by Landsat satellites operated by NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey.” Quoted from the NASA image release.
Landslide hazards may cause the Chinese government to relocate 100,000 people near the Three Gorges Dam. Landslides on the banks of the reservoir have increased dramatically since it was filled to its operating capacity in 2010.
Jessica Ball has some photos of a recent fossil collecting trip along the shoreline of Lake Erie. They found some nice corals, trilobites and brachiopods.
“In 1986 Lake Nyos, in the volcanic region of Cameroon, suddenly released a cloud of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, killing 1,700 people and 3,500 livestock in nearby towns and villages. [...] But since then, to prevent Lake Nyos from exploding again, an international team of scientists and engineers has developed and implemented a program to artificially remove gas from the lake through piping.” Quoted from the USGS press release.
Russian scientists have successfully drilled through two miles of Antarctic ice to reach Lake Vostok, a freshwater lake that has been isolated from the atmosphere for possibly 30 million years.
Water levels at Lake Mead have risen rapidly from record lows about one year ago. This change may have triggered an increase in seismic activity beneath the lake.
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