The Great Lakes of the World

We perform oceanographic research on the World's largest water bodies to characterize the sediment geochemistry and quantify the rates at which sediments exchange carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus with the overlying lake water. Sampling on the North American Great Lakes is performed on week-long research cruises aboard the LLO's research vessel, the R/V Blue Heron. Sediments are recovered from the lake bottom, sectioned vertically into cm-thick slices, and their porewaters and solid phases are analyzed. The obtained geochemical data are paired with numerical models that help understand the key reactions and processes and predict nutrient evolution in the Great Lakes on time scales up to several decades.