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Drinking Water Week
American Water Works Association (5/6)
Drinking Water Week, May 4-10, is a unique opportunity for water professionals and the communities they serve to join together to recognize the vital role water plays in our daily lives.
American Wetlands Month
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (5/2)
This May will mark the 18th anniversary of American Wetlands Month, a time when EPA and its partners celebrate the vital importance of wetlands to the Nation's ecological, economic, and social health. It is also a great opportunity to discover and teach others about the important role that wetlands play in our environment and the significant benefits they provide.
Great Lakes Regional Research Information Network (GLRRIN)
GLIN's May 2008 Site of the Month (5/1)
Established in 2006 by NOAA Sea Grant, GLIN and regional partners, GLRRIN provides a powerful means to foster collaboration, acquire funding, highlight research needs and issues, and increase the overall impact of Great Lakes research. GLRRIN is a free service and offers research-related news and upcoming events, and profiles of Great Lakes researchers and their current projects.
Mother Earth Water Walk
(4/28)
Two Anishinawbe Grandmothers, and a group of Anishinawbe Women and Men have taken action regarding the water issue by walking the perimeter of the Great Lakes. The 2008 Lake Michigan walk kicked off April 26.
Shipwrecks and Maritime Tales of the Lake Erie Coastal Ohio Trail
Ohio Sea Grant (4/24)
The shipwrecks within this website are a mere sampling of the hundreds of shipwreck sites located in the depths of Lake Erie. The goal is to make the visitor aware of the rich maritime history which lies beneath the surface of Ohio's Lake Erie.
Michigan Wildlife Conservancy
(4/21)
The Michigan Wildlife Conservancy provides the technical and financial assistance that landowners and managers need to restore and maintain wildlife habitat on their own land.
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
