All posts tagged: Lakes

PFAS monitoring finds forever chemicals in every rain and snow sample across the Great Lakes

PFAS monitoring finds forever chemicals in every rain and snow sample across the Great Lakes

Published by skeptic

Researchers with Minnesota Sea Grant say new findings from a two-year study show PFAS contamination is consistently entering the Great Lakes region through rain and snow. The project, funded by the United States Geological Survey, monitored precipitation at five locations across Minnesota and Michigan and detected PFAS in every sample collected. The research will be presented in June at the National Atmospheric Deposition Program Scientific Symposium in Madison, Wisconsin. Scientists involved in the project say the results strengthen evidence that airborne PFAS pollution is widespread and may travel long distances before settling into watersheds, lakes and surrounding ecosystems. The findings also raise concerns about the limits of current PFAS monitoring methods. Researchers discovered that routine testing captures only a small fraction of fluorinated chemicals present in precipitation, suggesting environmental contamination may be more extensive than previously understood. PFAS detected in all samples during two-year study PFAS are synthetic chemicals widely used in consumer and industrial products, including nonstick cookware, waterproof clothing, firefighting foams and food packaging. Because many PFAS compounds degrade extremely slowly, they are …

The lost inland sea that dwarfed the Great Lakes and reshaped North America

The lost inland sea that dwarfed the Great Lakes and reshaped North America

Published by Jenni Sidey

Long before Lake Superior, Lake Michigan, Lake Huron, Lake Erie, and Lake Ontario became the defining waters of North America, a far larger lake spread across the center of the continent. Lake Agassiz no longer appears on any map. It drained away after the last ice age. Still, its scale remains hard to ignore. More than 10,000 years ago, this prehistoric inland sea covered about 170,000 square miles, an area so vast it exceeded the combined size of the Great Lakes. That kind of size changes more than a shoreline. It helped carve valleys, fill basins, redirect rivers, and reshape the weather across a huge swath of land. Even now, the marks it left behind remain visible in the Red River Valley and in the many lakes and wetlands scattered across the region. Lake Agassiz is gone today, but during the last ice age it was a giant—sprawling across roughly 170,000 square miles and ranking among the largest lakes ever to cover North America. (CREDIT: CC BY-SA 4.0) The Great Lakes are hardly small. Lake …

First-ever map documents 33 glacial lakes hidden under the Canadian Arctic

First-ever map documents 33 glacial lakes hidden under the Canadian Arctic

Published by Jenni Sidey

Water hidden beneath Arctic glaciers is moving far more than scientists realized. Now there is a map to prove it. Researchers have identified 37 active subglacial lakes across the Canadian Arctic, including 33 bodies of water that had not been documented before. The lakes sit beneath or partly beneath glaciers. Furthermore, some of them drain or refill so quickly that the ice above them can rise or fall by more than 100 meters in less than a year. The work offers the first decadal inventory of active subglacial lakes in the region. It also adds a new layer to the picture of Arctic ice loss in one of the world’s fastest-changing glacier zones. “Now we can further characterize the way the Arctic environment is changing, which can be an indication of climate change impacts on the region,” said Dr. Wesley Van Wychen, a professor in the Faculty of Environment at the University of Waterloo. “Changes in water storage are important in terms of understanding how the speed of glaciers may change. By measuring the draining …

Congo lakes are releasing ancient carbon, raising climate concerns, study says

Congo lakes are releasing ancient carbon, raising climate concerns, study says

Published by Sam Flores

DAKAR, Feb 24 : Two large lakes in the Democratic Republic of Congo are releasing carbon that has been locked away for thousands of years in surrounding peatlands, scientists said, in what could pose a threat to climate stability. Tropical peatlands, which play a crucial role in climate regulation, were assumed to keep their carbon securely stored for millennia, according to researchers from the ETH Zurich university who published their findings in Nature Geoscience. However, the researchers from ETH Zurich found that up to 40 per cent of carbon dioxide emissions from Lakes Mai Ndombe and Tumba come from ancient peat deposits, some over 3,000 years old, rather than recent plant matter. “We were surprised to find that ancient carbon is being released via the lake,” lead author Travis Drake said in a statement. “The carbon reservoir has a leak, so to speak, from which ancient carbon is escaping,” co-author Matti Barthel said. It is unclear how the carbon moves from peatlands into the lakes. Researchers say the phenomenon could worsen with climate change or …

‘We had Norway’s glacial lakes to ourselves’: readers’ favourite breaks in Scandinavia and Finland | Scandinavia holidays

‘We had Norway’s glacial lakes to ourselves’: readers’ favourite breaks in Scandinavia and Finland | Scandinavia holidays

Published by Sam Flores

Glorious summer hiking in Norway A week’s hiking in Jotunheimen national park (230 miles north of Oslo) last summer brought me tranquillity and peace. During four days of challenging hiking and wild camping through the area we saw hardly anyone else, having entire lush green valleys and still glacial lakes to ourselves. We were fortunate to have stunning weather throughout and, despite it being July, still had a reasonable amount of snow to traverse. Norway has a fantastic network of signposted trails and huts which can be found on the Norwegian Trekking Association website.Ben An arty cabin break near Aarhus The Kunstmuseum’s walkway. Photograph: Wirestock/Alamy We had an amazing family holiday on the Jutland coast neat Aarhus, Denmark’s second city. We stayed in a cabin among pine trees and swam every day. We found helpful swimming jetties, making it simple to get into the sea – they even have hooks for towels. The beaches were wild and so quiet we often had them to ourselves. For an urban fix, Aarhus was a joy to visit. …

Forest Service rescues 24 stranded, starving wild horses near Mammoth Lakes; several die

Forest Service rescues 24 stranded, starving wild horses near Mammoth Lakes; several die

Published by Sam Flores

The Sunday before last, Blake DeBock snowmobiled out to nine wild horses he was told were stranded in deep snow north of Mammoth Lakes. “As soon as I saw them, it really confirmed that they were in a very serious situation,” the Bishop resident said. For the record: 2:24 p.m. Jan. 22, 2026An earlier version of this article misspelled photographer Blake DeBock’s last name as DeBok. Two horses were dead when he arrived, including a foal that appeared stillborn or miscarried. Christmas storms had dumped 5 feet of snow and he surmised that’s when they got stuck — and hadn’t had anything to eat or drink in the weeks since. About a mile or two away, another group of roughly 20 horses was in the same situation. As another week passed, bittersweet news arrived. The U.S. Forest Service rescued 24 of the horses and took them, temporarily, to a corral in Bishop. One later died from “extreme emaciation” and three were euthanized due to what the agency described as “critically poor body condition,” according to …