As members of a Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker crew collected samples from Lake Erie on March 10 for analysis by scientists at the Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research, a satellite far above collected images as part of a joint NASA-U.S. Geological Survey program.
So when the NASA Earth Observatory selected one of those photos as its image of the day for March 24, GLIER director Mike McKay was able to explain what it showed.
"We actually had boots on the ground to provide the story behind the image," says Dr. McKay. "We were in the right place at the right time."
The accompanying text by science writer Lindsey Doermann explains that thawing surface ice reveals signs of life in the lake's waters - swirling bands containing a mix of sediment and phytoplankton.
McKay noted that the samples provided to his lab by the Coast Guard contained elevated concentrations of the pigment chlorophyll, indicative of a winter-spring bloom of diatoms, accounting for 80 to 90 per cent of the present phytoplankton.
