The mystery of Great Lakes Sinkholes

Posted on by farlane

Sinkhole Research Cruise by NOAA GLERL

I read an interesting story about scientists exploring a sinkhole in Lake Michigan a couple of weeks ago that detailed how a team of scientists confirmed there are more than 40 sinkholes on the lakebed of Lake Michigan in the Wisconsin Shipwreck Coast National Marine Sanctuary.

What really piqued my interest was learning that that this isn’t the first time sinkholes have been found in the Great Lakes! In 2001, scientists found sinkholes at the bottom of Lake Huron in Michigan’s Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary, and I was able to find an award winning Great Lakes Now segment with Steve Ruberg, an observing systems researcher with NOAA’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory exploring the Lake Huron sinkholes in this very vessel!!

The National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory (NOAA GLERL) is dedicated to scientific research on the Great Lakes and coastal ecosystems. They share a lot of amazing photos of their work on Flickr & you can see more from this trip in their Buildings & Vessels gallery on Flickr.

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Tuesday Tweet: Great Lakes Ice at 85%

Posted on by farlane

NOAA Ice Coverage

Great Lakes Ice Coverage on Feb 23, 2015, photo by NOAA Environmental Visualization Laboratory

In Great Lakes Total Ice Cover Nears 85% NOAA reports:

The NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory is showing total ice cover of 84.4% as of February 22, 2015, well above the long term average and closing in on last year’s mark of 92.5% coverage on March 6, 2014. In this image, Lake Erie is a vast white plain, joining Lake Huron and Lake Superior with coverages above 90% and only small areas of open water. This image was taken by the Suomi NPP satellite’s VIIRS instrument around 1803Z on February 23, 2015.

Click through to see it big as the Great Lakes and see more photos of the Great Lakes from high above if you click the “Great Lakes” keyword.

PS: Follow @NOAA, @NOAA_GLERL & @NOAASatellites on Twitter for lots more great images!