Bear Lake Water Quality Symposium

Ostracode, diatom, dolomite, quartz, aragonite, strontium isotopes . . . These may not mean much to you and I, but they are all pieces of the Bear Lake puzzle that have been hidden deep within the sediments at the bottom of the lake. Placed in the hands of geologists and hydrologists, these pieces can tell us how old the lake is; what the climate was like; whether the incoming water was from the east side streams, the west side streams, or from the Bear River or even from another source; and how deep or shallow the lake might have been. This mud can also place all this information on an approximate time line.

The puzzle began to take shape from the analysis of the core samples taken from the lake floor between 1996 and 2002. The longest of these was 120 meters (that's about 390 feet!) and represents over 240,000 years. Additional information was acquired from sediment traps placed in the lake, seismic and side scan sonar mapping, diving expeditions, and water sampling. Many of the pieces came together for the first time at the Bear Lake Water Quality Symposium* held on Nov. 7th, 2002 in Garden City, UT.

I have created a graph in an attempt to pull most of the information presented at the symposium into one visual presentation to show how these different studies fit (or don't fit) together. Click here to see each presentation given at the Symposium.

We are very lucky to have these studies being done at Bear Lake. It is a very unique environment as it has been in existence for millions for years. It holds a record of the climate and environmental conditions in its layers of sediment and therefore has drawn Federal funding and attention.

However, the lake may not feel so lucky. She has been poked and prodded, long cored, short cored, trapped, sampled, side sonared and mapped over the last 6 years. Yet, even with all these examinations, many mysteries remain.

Claudia Cottle