Water science news, explainers, and statistics covering freshwater, hydrology, lakes, rivers, groundwater, ice, and Earth’s connected water systems.
Lake Michigan beaches hold an unusually mixed collection of stones. Common finds include limestone and dolostone, chert, sandstone, granite, basalt, quartzite and vein quartz. Fossil corals such as Petoskey and Charlevoix stones are prized discoveries. Agate, jasper, conglomerate and other glacially transported rocks also appear, although their abundance changes greatly from one shore to another.…
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Ocean floor sediment is made of mineral grains eroded from land, microscopic remains of marine organisms, minerals that form in seawater or within sediment, volcanic material and tiny amounts of extraterrestrial dust. The mixture changes dramatically with distance from shore, water depth, biological productivity, currents, climate and the age of the seafloor. There is no…
Saltwater lakes, more precisely called saline lakes, are inland bodies of water containing elevated concentrations of dissolved salts. Most form in closed drainage basins where streams carry dissolved minerals into a lake but no river carries them onward to the ocean. Water leaves mainly through evaporation, while salts remain and become concentrated. Yes, saltwater lakes…
Marine biology focuses on living organisms in saltwater environments, from microbes and algae to fish and whales. Oceanography studies the ocean as a whole system, including its life, chemistry, circulation, climate interactions and geology. Marine biology is therefore organism-centered, while oceanography is a broader Earth science with a biological branch. The boundary is permeable. A…
