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Strategic plan targets invasive species
The Superior Daily Telegram (11/17)
Douglas County’s Land Conservation Committee is forwarding a plan to the county board that takes aim at invasive species.
Mich. Clean Marina Program: Public-private partners work together to improve water quality
Grand Rapids Environmental News Examiner (11/9)
Partners from the public and private sector in Michigan are working together in a voluntary program to improve the quality of the Great Lakes.
Researchers seek funding for wind test site in Lake Michigan
Grand Rapids Environmental News Examiner (11/7)
In a recent article in The Muskegon Chronicle, it was reported that researchers at Grand Valley State University’s Michigan Alternative and Renewable Energy Center (MAREC) cited a lack of year-around data (on wind platform testing) needed by prospective development companies.
COMMENTARY: Senate needs to pass clean energy act to help Michigan
The Grand Rapids Press (10/26)
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was absolutely correct with his recent proclamation about the current condition of the Great Lakes State: "The State of Michigan," Reid declared from the Senate Floor, with a copy Time Magazine in his hand, "is in trouble."
First Nation women 'walk the environmental talk'
WeNews (10/23)
Tomorrow's global day of climate activism aims for media and political attention. First Nation women have another way. Since 2003, they've walked the shoreline of a Great Lake or major river, meditating on the needs of an unborn generation.
City making big push for water school
The Business Journal (10/23)
The push is on to convince the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee that the best location for its new School of Freshwater Sciences is near the university’s existing Great Lakes Water Institute on East Greenfield Avenue.
What's going on in your neighborhood this month? Meet other people and learn together at recreational and educational events! Our new dynamic calendar is updated daily with current educational events.
5 | Isle Royale
Located in the northwestern section of Lake Superior, the archipelago of Isle Royale National Park is a reminder of what primitive America's landscape looked like. Both molten lava and glaciers shaped the shorelines and inland lands, and created a landscape unique to Isle Royale.
Over one billion years ago, the earth's crust cracked in what is now the area of Lake Superior, and molten lava poured out onto the land. Exploding over 100 times, lava spouted from the cracks in the earth, coating the earth with layer upon layer of lava; the weight of the lava eventually sunk the land and formed the Lake Superior basin. Some of the lava flows in this region, like the Greenstone Flow, are among the largest and thickest flows in the world. They took tens of hundreds of years to cool and solidify, and in doing so formed the giant columns of the Palisades.
Isle Royale's southern and northern shorelines differ greatly. About 11,000 years ago, the last glacier starting retreating from Isle Royale. There was a pause in the glacial retreat when the glacial ice front lay across the southwest end of Isle Royale; after that long pause, the ice rapidly retreated across the rest of the island, leaving a thin mantle of deposits at the southwest end, but very little material on the central and northeast sections, where the ice melted quickly.
Today, you can see the result of this glacial retreat by comparing the beaches of the south shore (photo above) with the north shore (photo at right). The southernmost beaches are composed of reddish sedimentary rocks deposited during the long pause of the last glacier, while the northernmost tip of Isle Royale is composed of rocky bluffs.
Graphics: The Palisades; red rock beach on Isle Royale's southern shoreline; Isle Royale's northern shoreline
