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Q: From Lamar in IL, 7th grade
What are you looking for on the lake?
A: The annual limnology program for the Great Lakes began in 1983. This program provides information on key environmental factors that influence the food chain and fish of the Great Lakes. The annual monitoring of the Great Lakes began in 1983 for Lakes Michigan, Huron, and Erie; in 1986 in Lake Ontario; and in 1992 for Lake Superior. The sampling strategy is to collect water and biota samples at specific water depths from a limited number of locations in each lake twice every year.
Objectives of the annual program are:
- To assess the state of water quality in the open lake basins (water greater than 30 meters in depth, or greater than 3 miles from shore.)
- To provide data to detect and evaluate trends and annual changes in chloride, nitrate nitrogen, silica, phytoplankton, total phosphorus, chlorophyll a, and secchi disc depth.
- To provide data sufficient to verify or modify water quality models.
- To provide data to calculate the Trophic Index of e ach lake
The R/V Lake Guardian (ship that I was on), operated by the EPA’s Chicago-based Great Lakes National Program Office (GLNPO), conducts monitoring programs that sample the water, aquatic life, sediments, and air in order to assess the health of the Great Lakes ecosystem by using state-of-the-art data collection techniques and instruments during the biannual spring and summer surveys. We monitor and collect basic water column information such as temperature, depth, conductivity (which helps to determine salinity), pH, light penetration, water transparency and chlorophyll. This type of information provides a basic understanding of the system’s vital parameters. We also have plankton nets that are set from the back of the ship to collect the organisms that form the base of the lake's food chain: phytoplankton (algae) and zooplankton (small animals). Plankton samples are then evaluated for their abundance, diversity and overall health, since the base of the food chain supports the entire system.
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Q: From Spencer in IL, 7th grade
Do you get homesick?
A: Our ship is very up-to-date with technology so I usually don’t have a problem communicating with my family. We have internet connections as well as satellite connections for our cell phones to receive better reception. I will say though that after a few weeks, I do start to miss my own bed. :O)
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Q: From Quinton in IL, 8th grade
Where did the Great Lakes come from? [What is the history
of the Great
Lakes' formation?]
A: http://www.uic.edu/orgs/gem-set/Great_Lakes_History.pdf
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Q: From Felena in IL, 8th grade
Do you meet other scientists when you are out on the lake?
If you do, what
are they doing?
A: The Great Lakes National Program Office offers other federal, state and university scientists the opportunity to conduct research aboard the R/V Lake Guardian when we are out sampling, so yes I do meet other scientists. This past survey, we had someone out from our Duluth lab sampling sediment cores and monitoring for Mysis.
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Q: From Lacreshail in IL, 11th grade
Do you travel to all the Great Lakes?
A: I do travel to all of the Great Lakes twice a year for our limnology surveys. These surveys usually occur in the spring and in the summer.
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End of Q & A
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9/26/05
Hello!! Just a recap of the day so far. We hit SU10 today
around 2:00am. Total depth was 150 meters with a 20.5 meter
thermocline. At 8:08am, we hit station SU12 which was 232
meters deep with the thermocline coming in at 20 meters. If
you've been looking at the sampling map that I sent out and
are wondering why we are all over the place, it's because
we're trying to get as many stations out of the way before
we have to head to Duluth to avoid that storm.
Well that's all for now. I'll write back later when we hit
some more stations.
-Jackie- :O)
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9/25/05
Not much exciting happened today, except for that I finally
had a cell phone signal and could call home :O) We sat in
Houghton, MI for the entire day to wait out the waves. It's
now 6:00pm and we're getting ready to set sail again. We should
be hitting our next station early tomorrow morning. Talk to
you then. -Jackie-
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9/24/05
Hello girls!! Here it is...the update for today. We hit SU02
around 2:33 this morning. Total depth was 149 meters with
a 15 meter thermocline. It looks like this may be the last
station that we're going to hit for a while as there are some
pretty big waves building and we may have to go closer to
shore to wait them out. -Jackie-
I'm back. It's about 6:40pm and we just finished SU05. As
I said earlier, we hit some pretty big waves and went to hide
out behind an island (it blocked the waves quite well) to
wait them out. SU05 ended up being a whopping 175 meters deep
with the thermocline coming in around 24.5 meters.
We're now headed into a small town in Michigan, called Houghton,
(See photo of Houghton)to wait
out some more weather. I think this may be the worst survey
(weather wise) that I've done so far. We're thinking that
we may have to dock in Duluth from Tuesday until Thursday
because of the Gale force winds that are scheduled to shake
the lake. I'll keep you updated though. -Jackie-
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9/23/05
Alright, we've finally set sail after what seemed like the
longest trip to Sault Ste. Marie, MI ever. Our planes were
delayed due to some severe storms that are spreading over
the entire state of Michigan. It's now 2:00am and we're on
our way. We've just learned that there will be some special
sampling being done by our Duluth lab, so the trip is going
to take a little longer that expected.
Just to give you some background information on what we test
for out here on the R/V Lake Guardian. We're an EPA vessel
that travels around all 5 Great Lakes sampling water. We have
a limnology program (water chemistry), and a biology program
out here. I do the limnology part, collecting water and running
board chemistry on it. I also filter the remaining water and
preserve it for nutrient analysis later. The board chemistry
is quite simple. We test for pH, alkalinity, conductivity,
and turbidity of the water right here on the ship. I'll include
some pictures of those instruments later in the digest.
The biology program monitors for chlorophyll, phytoplankton,
benthic (sediment) sampling, and zooplankton.
The ship runs much slower than one would think. We actually
travel at 12 nautical miles per hour. 1 mile = 0.89 nautical
miles, so think around 12 miles per hour. We should be hitting
our first station around 1:00 this afternoon, so I'll write
back then to give you some updates. -Jackie-
P.S. If you have any questions while I'm out that you'd like
to ask, please feel free to e-mail them to me at: Adams.Jacqueline@epa.gov.
I'll answer them as soon as I can get to them. :O)
9/23/05 (Part 2)
So, I waited until we hit the 2 stations that we were hitting
today so that I could write one more journal entry instead
of 2. We hit station SU01 around 1:00pm today. The station
had a depth of 93.5 meters with the thermocline (point at
which the temperature drops) coming in around 23 meters. This
is one of the shallower stations on Lake Superior as you'll
learn when you begin to see the other station depths later.
SU04 was our next station that came around 9:00 this evening.
It had a total depth of 143 meters with the thermocline at
around 17.5 meters.
Also, just to give you a heads up, we just learned that there
is supposed to be some pretty bad weather (12-14 foot waves)
on Wednesday, so that may delay us up to a day or so as we
can't sample on waves that are bigger than 5 feet. I'll let
you know more as I learn it. That's all for today. -Jackie-
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