Book about the Great Lakes available on Kindle.

The Dynamic Great Lakes by Barbara Spring is available on Kindle readers. There are a few copies of the paperback on Amazon.com.

The Great Lakes System and The Dynamic Great Lakes

The Great Lakes System  click the link

the link is to wikipedia.  Below is The Dynamic Great Lakes with what lies beneath the freshwater seas.

Niagara Falls

The waters of Lake Superior, Lake Michigan, Lake Huron and Lake Erie take a plunge over Niagara Falls.  The water falls into Lake Ontario and then finds its way out to the Atlantic Ocean through the St. Lawrence River.

Read more about the Great Lakes system in The Dynamic Great Lakes.

Lake Huron's Whitefish

By Ian Wendrow

Lake Huron whitefish are suffering from ecosystem changes caused by invasive quagga and zebra mussels, according to a new study.

“It’s the same decline in whitefish as has been found previously in the other Great Lakes where the mussels become established,” Jenilee Gobin, a co-author of the report from

Trent University in Ontario, explained in an email.

Other emerging research shows the source of food for the whitefish in these locations

has changed because of the mussels.

Gobin and her team proved that Lake Huron is going through what researchers have been seeing in the other Great Lakes for years: invasive species like the zebra and quagga mussels working in tandem with other key events to contribute to a decline in profitable fish species, including whitefish.

“Our study represents the first that we are aware of to build a life history simulation model that explicitly addresses how the ecosystem changes have impacted harvest of a Great Lakes population of lake whitefish,” Gobin said.

These ecosystem changes have been ongoing for several decades. The study found that whitefish growth and recruitment in Lake Huron may have been reduced by up to 50 percent since the 1990s.

The study doesn’t say that the mussels are the only culprits. The invasive spiny water flea holds a portion of the blame for Lake Huron’s recent environmental mutations, according to the study.

But much of it ties back to the mussels, starting with the near-complete disappearance of alewives in 2003, said David Fielder, a fisheries biologist at the Michigan Department of Natural Resource’s Alpena Fisheries Research Center.

Alewives are small fish that are an important food source for larger fish such as Chinook salmon or lake whitefish within Lake Huron.

Those fish suffered when the mussels ate up the diporeia, a tiny macroinvertebrate that was an important source of food for the alewives that these larger fish ate.

Diporeia populations diminished significantly with the arrival of the mussels. Both the mussels and the diporeia are filter feeders, which most fishery researchers argue led to a competition for food between the two.

The mussels won that competition.

Another mussel-related food chain alteration may have harmed recruitment, or the number of new whitefish added to the population each year, Fielder said.

“Some other recent research has illustrated that part of the food web changes has included less nearshore productivity, at least in the form of zooplankton,” he said.

Zooplankton are microscopic organisms that are food for newly hatched fish. However, zooplankton have to eat as well. Their food is phytoplankton, microscopic organisms that feed through photosynthesis like plants.

“We used to see nice blooms of zooplankton in the spring just as fish were hatching, but they have disappeared in recent years, Fielder said. Researchers theorize that the phytoplankton that zooplankton eat have been filtered out by the abundant mussels.

“So without ample spring zooplankton, newly hatched whitefish quickly starve and never produce much of a year class,” he said.

The Ontario study acknowledges Fielder’s assessment in their research, while also pointing a finger at the predacious spiny water flea as another reason for zooplankton decline, thus further limiting food supply for larval fish.

In spite of these observed changes, not all fish sellers and anglers see the situation the same way.

“Whitefish produce lots of eggs and their survival rate is high,” said Mike Donlan, a fourth-generation fishmonger and general manager at Donlan’s Fish and Seafood in Flint, Michigan.

Donlan doesn’t exclusively stock from Lake Huron, his supply comes from all over the Great Lakes. Like most other species of fish, supply changes year to year, Donlan said. This year has been a trying year when it came to whitefish.

“There hasn’t been as much availability as prior years. For instance this year it was a real, real hot summer,” he said.

In hotter temperatures, whitefish and other species will migratei nto deeper water where it’s cooler, which puts them out of range of most commercial fishing boats.

“Sometimes the fish are not where the fishermen want them to be,” Donlan said.

Looking long term, however, Donlan says he’s unconcerned by the findings in the study

“We haven’t heard of anything mentioned that there’s an alert that we’re gonna run out of white fish in the Great Lakes.”

Jerry and David Serafin, the owners of Pinconning, Michigan’s, Serafin Fishery, daid they are incredulous about a whitefish decline in Lake Huron.

“They’re in better shape than they were a few years ago,” Jerry Serafin said.

DNR fishery researchers took some of Serafin’s whitefish to assess the health of the population last fall. According to what they told Serafin, his whitefish had significantly higher fat content than 10, 15 years ago.

David Serafin says he is more concerned about the planting of lake trout and the ever- growing walleye population.

“My concern with the whitefish is that the DNR want to plant herring in Lake Huron to feed the walleyes,” David Serafin said.

“Well walleyes eat whitefish, they eat anything. They’re cannibals, they eat each other, and these things are so overpopulated that we catch a lot of whitefish but there’s gonna come a time when the population goes down,” he said.

While the causes of and proposed solutions to these fishery population changes remain varied, Gobin said he’s certain on one point:

“What is clear is that we need to continue to study and monitor these valuable populations to ensure that there is good quality data on which to base management decisions and that we are harvesting within the safe biological limits that are appropriate for the present set of environmental conditions.”

NOAA map of Great Lakes Currents

Great Lakes Currentshttp://www.glerl.noaa.gov/res/glcfs/currents/glcfs-currents-surf.html

click on the link for an up to date interactive map of Great Lakes currents on all five Great Lakes.

Pictured is the shoreline of Lake Michigan at Grand Haven, Michigan

Native Fish in Great Lakes Make a Comeback

Steelhead, perch and lake trout are making a comeback due to the decline of the alewife.  For more information about fishing in the five Great Lakes, here is a link: The latest fishing information

The Great Lakes from Space by NASA

NASA photo of the five Great Lakes: Lake Superior, Lake Michigan, Lake Huron, Lake Erie and Lake Ontario.  There is still ice on Lake Michigan and Lake Superior but soon it will all be gone and people will be out on the lakes enjoying swimming, fishing, kayaking, surfing, wind surfing, kite boarding and just enjoying the freshwater seas.

From this point of view, we can appreciate the Great Lakes.  They are freshwater seas.

Waves on Lake Michigan

The waves keep rolling in.  I painted this water color of the beach in Lake Michigan.  Lake Michigan and Lake Huron are very high this year.  Geologically, this is the same lake at the same sea level.  We have had snow and then it melted.  Snow again that melted.  We are waiting to see what the Winter Solstice Dec. 21 brings us.


Surfers are still enjoying these conditions.  Read more about all of these freshwater seas in my book:  The Dynamic Great Lakes available at Barnes & Noble, Amazon.com, Books A Million, The Bookman, Hostetters in Grand Haven and many other fine bookstores.

water color by Barbara Spring

The Dynamic Great Lakes non fiction book and photos

The Dynamic Great Lakes  click the link

A book to throw in your travel bag if you are fishing, diving, swimming, boating or sailing on any of the five Great Lakes: Lake Superior, Lake Michigan, Lake Huron, Lake Erie, Lake Ontario as well as Lake St. Clair and all of the connecting waters.

Live Current Map: NOAA

Great Lakes Currents: NOAA

 The wind changes lake currents rapidly on the Great Lakes.  Click the link to see which way the wind is blowing.

Profile of the 5 Great Lakes

Geologically Lake Huron and Lake Michigan are the same lake since they are the same sea level

The Great Lakes are Stressed

• Aquatic habitat alterations: Changes to aquatic habitat from diverse causes, such as shoreline hardening and erosion control structures, port and marina development, and tributary dams
• Climate change: Changes to seasonal, average, and extreme temperature, precipitation, and ice cover
• Coastal development: Land-based human development near lake margins, such as residential and commercial development and industrial activities
• Fisheries management: Changes to Great Lakes ecosystems resulting from fishing pressure, stocking activities, and aquaculture
• Invasive species: Changes to Great Lakes ecosystems from invasive and nuisance species in abundances not previously seen
• Nonpoint source pollution: Nutrients, sediments, and waterborne contaminants transported from watersheds to the Great Lakes by streams and rivers and atmospheric deposition
• Toxic chemical pollution: Chemical pollutants from industrial and agricultural sources

Research on Lake Huron

Great Lakes Echo

Lake Huron to be home of long-term research program

Aug 2 2012 By Sara Matthews


Lake Huron has the most shoreline and is the second largest Great Lake. Yet it gets perhaps the least scientific attention.

That will soon change. Lake Huron is the home of a new long-term research program started this summer by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association’s Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory.

From the agency’s base at the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary in Alpena, Mich., scientists are studying water quality, invasive and native species, nutrient levels and physical properties of the lake.

It’s long overdue. Lake Michigan has been the site of a long-term research program since the 1980s.

“Lake Huron is the least studied [Great] Lake,” said Henry Vanderploeg, the program’s lead researcher. “We’ve done a lot of work in Saginaw Bay and want to expand our monitoring program on Lake Huron.

Significant changes in the Lake Huron ecosystem are a main focus of the research. A decline of nutrients in the open water is leading to a food shortage for prey fish like salmon. At the same time, fish like walleye and smallmouth bass in the nearshore are increasing.

So are blooms of cladophora, an algae that emits a sewer-like odor as it rots on beaches.

Nutrients, the food web and water quality create the ecosystem of Lake Huron, Vanderploeg said, “but no one really knows how the Great Lakes systems work together.”

Studying the lake may give clues to how to effectively manage it for both water quality and fish production, he said.

Similar studies already done in Lake Michigan will be used to compare the lakes to better understand how they work.

Huron and Michigan are considered the same lake hydrologically, Vanderploeg said. But EPA monitoring data shows changes in similar plankton communities are occurring faster in Lake Huron.

“The reasons for that are not understood yet,” he said.

The effort will research how:
■winds, waves, temperature and current affect ecosystems
■sediment influences algae blooms
■bottom-dwelling organisms affect algae growth and the availability of phosphorous
■the food web is distributed in both near- and open- shore environments
■bottom-dwelling organisms like quagga and zebra mussels are spread through the lake.

The agency ‘s participation in the 2012 Lake Huron Cooperative Science and Monitoring Initiative is the starting point for the long-term program.

The initiative is a joint effort between the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Great Lakes National Program Office and Environment Canada to study one Great Lake per year. The studies


The U.S. EPA’s Lake Guardian is one of the ships traversing Lake Huron this summer gathering data for the initiative. Photo: U.S. EPA

are one element of the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement made by the U.S. and Canada in 1972 to create an international effort to protect the Great Lakes.

Participating agencies collaboratively examined ecological problems in Lake Huron to create research questions, said Glen Warren, an aquatic biologist with the Environmental Protection Agency. Finding the answers will aid management decisions.

“Lake Huron has undergone some drastic changes in the last ten years or so,” Warren said. “The work we are doing will lead to better management of the lake.”

Other agencies studying the lake include the U.S. Geological Survey, wildlife and environmental agencies from Michigan and Ontario and universities from both countries.

“There are 11 Canadian and U.S. organizations and 24 science monitoring projects going on this summer,” said John Marsdon, a manager of Great Lakes issues and reporting for Environment Canada.

“Environment Canada covers all the lakes every year, so does the EPA, but the cooperative field season 2012 for Lake Huron harnesses everyone in a coordinated fashion,” he said.

Researchers say it’s a good strategy.

“When we cooperate it’s amazing how much we can get done,” said Paul Horvatin, chief of environmental monitoring and reporting branch for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. “It all adds up to more than what we can do separately.

“It will lead to a much better managed lake.”

In 2010 the Cooperative Science and Monitoring Initiative studied Lake Michigan; in 2011 it focused on Lake Superior. Meetings are already underway to coordinate ships and areas of study for Lake Ontario in 2013. Lake Erie will be next.

My watercolor of Flower Pot Island in Georgian Bay, part of Lake Huron.  I enjoyed hiking the Bruce Trail in Canada and going out on a glass bottom boat to observe sunken ships.  These waters can be dangerous.  Wind and waves have sculpted the sandstone into shapes resembling flower pots.

My book, The Dynamic Great Lakes is now available on Amazon's Kindle as well as paperback.  The book is about the many interesting features of the Great Lakes.

It's That Time of Year. Coast Guard Ice Rescue video

Here is a video of an ice rescue by the Coast Guard.  It is dangerous to go out on the ice this time of year on the Great Lakes.

Satellite view of The Upper Great Lakes

As seen from a satellite, Lake Michigan  is in the foreground with some of Lake Superior showing above it and Lake Huron to the east.  Geologically, Lake Michigan and Lake Huron are the same lake because they are at the same sea level.  They are like Siamese twins attached through the straits of Mackinac.  These are the upper Great Lakes.

Not in the picture are Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, the lower Great Lakes.

Water Levels in the Great Lakes: NOAA Information

The information below is from the NOAA educational website.  The photo is on the cover of my book, The Dynamic Great Lakes.  The scene is an alvar on the Bruce Peninsula in Canada on Lake Huron.

"Water levels in the Great Lakes change because of meteorological effects, not tides.

Water levels in the Great Lakes have long-term, annual, and short-term variations. Long-term variations depend on precipitation and water storage over many years. Annual variations occur with the changing seasons. There is an annual high in the late spring and low in the winter. These changes occur at a rate that can be measured in feet per month.

True tides, changes in water level caused by the gravitational forces of the sun and moon, do occur in a semi-diurnal (twice daily) pattern on the Great Lakes. Studies indicate that the Great Lakes spring tide, the largest tides caused by the combined forces of the sun and moon, is less than five centimeters (two inches) in height. These minor variations are masked by the greater fluctuations in lake levels produced by wind and barometric pressure changes.

Consequently, the Great Lakes are considered to be essentially non-tidal.

For more information:

Center for Operational Oceanographic Products and Services

Great Lakes Water Level Data

Great Lakes Online

Tide Predictions and Data Frequently Asked Questions

Tides Tutorial, NOS Education

What are Tides? - Diving Deeper audio podcast "

The Bruce Peninsula on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

The Bruce Peninsula on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

The Bruce Peninsula in Canada is a fascinating place for boating, fishing or hiking. Wind and waves have eroded the sandstone into sentinals such as the one pictured. It is part of the Niagara escarpment. The Door Peninsula in Wisconsin is also.

The Bruce hiking trail is beautiful with many views of Georgian Bay.

There are glass bottomed boats that will reveal to you shipwrecks on the bottom of Georgian Bay.

Mackinac Bridge Connects the Upper and Lower Peninsulas of Michigan

Sinkholes on the bottom of Lake Huron