A Day on the Lake

Another day on Browns Lake collecting and downloading data. Nick Wiesenberg (Geological Technician) and I had a quiet morning on a slushy/almost ice covered lake. Nick was trolling for diatoms and the like for sampling productivity in the lake. He was also downloading hourly temperature data (see below) that has been recorded since early July 2020 – in the graph you can see that the lake begins to thermally mix in the fall and is thoroughly mixed by Mid-November. These data are taken from a mooring that Nick established in the middle of the lake at 6 meters water depth. Justine Paul Berina (’22) used these data and others for his Geomorphology project. He wrote a report for our collaborators at the University of Cincinnati that includes his excellent GIS work along with analyses of various logger data. We hope to build on this work and continue the record in the years and decades to come.

Nick trolls the lake to capture the diatoms and other biology in the upper meter of the water column.

Keeping records of the geochemistry of the water throughout the year as well as the sediment raining down through the water column is also part of the monthly routine at the lake.

Nick lowers a Secchi disk into the water column to get an idea of the turbidity of the water.

The many faces of Browns Lake. Thanks to The Nature Conservancy (TNC) for allowing us to do this work and for managing this amazing resource.