exploring nature’s infinite connections
One year ago, I wrote about a bit of a rabbit hole I stepped into regarding the name of a local city-owned nature preserve and confusion over some naming on the maps of a couple of streams that run through or around the Plum Brook Nature Preserve (aka. Sterling...
Walking along this beach, it isn't uncommon to look down and find a piece of fossilized coral. During the Devonian Age (359-416 million years ago), this land mass we now call Michigan was near the Equator and teaming with marine life. It's a long time frame that seems...
The Great Lakes are a bit below normal as far as ice cover for this time in January at only 2.9%. But similar to past years, a lot can change in just a matter of a couple weeks. The little tilted heart-shaped lake down by Detroit is Lake St. Clair, where I do a lot of...
While working on a few photographs today of Lake Huron, I began to think about how different the landscape (lakescape?) and geology are between the lake's northern and southern ends. I suppose that is to be expected for a lake that is more than 200 statute miles long....
Michigan has the largest concentration of freshwater coastal sand dunes in the world, spanning 230,423 acres. Approximately 32 percent of them are classified as "Critical Dune Areas" as designated by State legislation efforts. As defined in this legislation, Critical...
Season changes bring some turbulent and chaotic weather in the Great Lakes. Lake Superior is known to be particularly temperamental. Recalling a day from 2015 when I was in Michigan's Upper Peninsula photographing autumn color in mid-October, the weather was looking...
Shoreline erosion is a growing concern in the Great Lakes area, especially after having record high lake levels in the past few years. Beach Grass, also known as Marram Grass, is quite symbolic of Michigan shorelines. Anyone that has walked the beaches of the Great...
We've had a bit of a roller-coaster ride here in the Great Lakes region as far as ice cover this year. For the vast majority of the 2020/21 winter season, the lakes remained largely open. Then a big cold burst hit us in Feb 2021, and ice started forming very fast....
Temperatures are rising this last week of February, giving a possible hint the coldest spell of winter in Michigan may be coming to an end. Of course, now that I have typed that statement, it surely means we will be hit with another big storm. I took a couple of trips...