A story is hidden in the muddy floor of the Great Lakes.The layers of rock, minerals and clay are the archives of North American history. They contain traces of the waters before major human impacts. Their chemical signatures reveal the drastic changes that occurred as agriculture, industry and cities transformed the region.
Paige Kohler believes those grains of sediment are the key to understanding just how much the lakes have changed – and what kind of recovery is possible.
This summer, the Michigan State University Ph.D. student sailed from Milwaukee to Detroit collecting mud samples from newly discovered underwater sinkholes in Lake Michigan. Along with Dalton Hardisty, MSU associate professor of earth environmental sciences, she scooped up sediments that may help reveal whether these newly discovered sinkholes are preserving a record of the lakes’ past.
“Establishing those baseline conditions can give us a better target for recovery and what that should look like,” Kohler said.