APPLICATION OF LEGACY GEOSCIENCE DATA TO THREE-DIMENSIONAL GEOLOGY OF THE GREAT LAKES BASIN

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Todd ◽  
◽  
C.F. Michael Lewis
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Danielle E. Mitchell

A wealth of resources for economic prosperity have driven development along the shorelines of the Great Lakes for over 150 years. The rapid growth of industrial, agricultural, and residential land use has degraded many natural components of lake ecosystems, including sediments and water quality. In this dissertation, spatiotemporal patterns of non-essential heavy metal sediment contamination in Lake Erie will be examined from historic and contemporary sediment surveys. Three inter-related studies explore innovative methods for improving the validity and overall usefulness of sediment contamination maps that could be used by a variety of stakeholders in pollution control efforts throughout the Lake Erie basin. First, sediment survey designs are analyzed for their utility in creating valid interpolated surfaces from which spatiotemporal comparisons of mercury sediment contamination can be compared over time. The next study explores how ancillary sediment variables and contamination categorization methods can support interpolated maps of cadmium sediment contamination from low-density sediment surveys. The final study introduces a novel method of three-dimensional geovisualization to enhance the geographic representation of lead sediment contamination patterns throughout the Lake Erie basin. Innovative research methodologies designed for this dissertation may be applied to sediment contamination studies in other Great Lakes. The visualization techniques employed in mapping sediment contamination patterns provide strong scientific evidence for spatiotemporal change in non-essential heavy metal pollution throughout Lake Erie. Combined, the research findings and maps produced throughout this dissertation can contribute to the growing body of knowledge used in environmental decision making for pollution control in the Great Lakes basin


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Danielle E. Mitchell

A wealth of resources for economic prosperity have driven development along the shorelines of the Great Lakes for over 150 years. The rapid growth of industrial, agricultural, and residential land use has degraded many natural components of lake ecosystems, including sediments and water quality. In this dissertation, spatiotemporal patterns of non-essential heavy metal sediment contamination in Lake Erie will be examined from historic and contemporary sediment surveys. Three inter-related studies explore innovative methods for improving the validity and overall usefulness of sediment contamination maps that could be used by a variety of stakeholders in pollution control efforts throughout the Lake Erie basin. First, sediment survey designs are analyzed for their utility in creating valid interpolated surfaces from which spatiotemporal comparisons of mercury sediment contamination can be compared over time. The next study explores how ancillary sediment variables and contamination categorization methods can support interpolated maps of cadmium sediment contamination from low-density sediment surveys. The final study introduces a novel method of three-dimensional geovisualization to enhance the geographic representation of lead sediment contamination patterns throughout the Lake Erie basin. Innovative research methodologies designed for this dissertation may be applied to sediment contamination studies in other Great Lakes. The visualization techniques employed in mapping sediment contamination patterns provide strong scientific evidence for spatiotemporal change in non-essential heavy metal pollution throughout Lake Erie. Combined, the research findings and maps produced throughout this dissertation can contribute to the growing body of knowledge used in environmental decision making for pollution control in the Great Lakes basin


2020 ◽  
Vol 77 (8) ◽  
pp. 1379-1392 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tej Heer ◽  
Mathew G. Wells ◽  
P. Ryan Jackson ◽  
Nicholas E. Mandrak

Invasive grass carp (Ctenopharyngodon idella) are known to spawn in the Sandusky River, Ohio, USA, within the Great Lakes Basin, and are threatening to expand throughout the Great Lakes. Successful spawning is thought to require that eggs remain in suspension until hatching, which depends on river hydrodynamics and temperature-dependent egg development. Previous modelling efforts used one-dimensional hydrodynamic models that simplify egg movement by not simulating low-velocity zones within the river. To examine the effect of low-velocity zones on egg transit times and hatching rates, we developed a novel coupling of a biophysical Lagrangian particle tracker and three-dimensional hydrodynamic model on the Sandusky River during a high-flow event. The model successfully predicted egg-capture data for a range of developmental stages and revealed a mechanism that resuspends eggs trapped in low-velocity zones. The resuspension mechanism increases the residence time of grass carp eggs in spawning tributaries and can lead to successful hatching occurring in shorter distances than previously estimated. Grass carp potentially spawning in shorter tributary lengths has widespread implications for efforts preventing establishment in the Great Lakes Basin.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (13) ◽  
pp. 7274
Author(s):  
Joshua T. Fergen ◽  
Ryan D. Bergstrom

Social vulnerability refers to how social positions affect the ability to access resources during a disaster or disturbance, but there is limited empirical examination of its spatial patterns in the Great Lakes Basin (GLB) region of North America. In this study, we map four themes of social vulnerability for the GLB by using the Center for Disease Control’s Social Vulnerability Index (CDC SVI) for every county in the basin and compare mean scores for each sub-basin to assess inter-basin differences. Additionally, we map LISA results to identify clusters of high and low social vulnerability along with the outliers across the region. Results show the spatial patterns depend on the social vulnerability theme selected, with some overlapping clusters of high vulnerability existing in Northern and Central Michigan, and clusters of low vulnerability in Eastern Wisconsin along with outliers across the basins. Differences in these patterns also indicate the existence of an urban–rural dimension to the variance in social vulnerabilities measured in this study. Understanding regional patterns of social vulnerability help identify the most vulnerable people, and this paper presents a framework for policymakers and researchers to address the unique social vulnerabilities across heterogeneous regions.


2020 ◽  
Vol 46 (6) ◽  
pp. 1533-1543 ◽  
Author(s):  
C.A. Volpano ◽  
L.K. Zoet ◽  
J.E. Rawling ◽  
E.J. Theuerkauf ◽  
R. Krueger

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