Water science news, explainers, and statistics covering freshwater, hydrology, lakes, rivers, groundwater, ice, and Earth’s connected water systems.
An ocean brine pool is a basin of extremely salty water that collects on the seafloor. The brine is denser than ordinary seawater, so the two water masses can remain visibly separated. Underwater cameras may show a rippling boundary that resembles the shoreline of a lake, even though the pool and the surrounding ocean are…
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River stage is the height of the water surface above a chosen reference elevation at one location. Discharge is the volume of water passing that location per unit of time. A streamgage can record stage continuously, but hydrologists usually need a site-specific relation called a rating curve to convert that height into an estimated flow.…
The most useful U.S. Lake Superior beaches for rock hunting include places where limited collecting is allowed and protected shores where visitors may only examine stones. Rules follow the land manager, not the lake as a whole. A beach that looks public can sit inside a state park, national lakeshore or scientific area with very…
Ontario’s Great Lakes Protection Act, 2015 creates a provincial framework for protecting and restoring the ecological health of the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin. It requires a provincial strategy, establishes a Great Lakes Guardians’ Council and provides tools for setting targets and developing geographically focused initiatives. This explanation was reviewed on August 24, 2026 against…
