UMD’s Large Lake Observatory research reported online

The work of the Large Lakes Observatory is the latest local research topic covered by the online magazine Science Nation.

“Climate Change and Other Threats to World’s Freshwater Goliaths,” was posted Monday. The Duluth News-Tribune reports this is the fourth Science Nation story on research at the University of Minnesota Duluth in three months.

The observatory’s work is supported in part by the National Science Foundation, which publishes Science Nation each Monday.

UMD created the Large Lakes Observatory in 1994 with the idea of having an institute in Duluth to have local expertise to look after the welfare of Lake Superior.

The observatory’s focus has expanded far beyond Lake Superior. Its researchers have studied the biology, chemistry, physics and geology of large lakes around the world. In addition to the Great Lakes, the observatory is studying lake sediments in lakes in Africa and Central America to determine what climates in the past were like in those areas.