J. Elmo Rawling Colloquia

Great Lakes shorelines are particularly dynamic because of decadal period high-amplitude water level fluctuations and seasonality. Lake Michigan water levels approached a near all-time high in 2019 and have since returned to their near long-term average. This led to widespread erosion of coastal bluffs and beaches and provided an opportunity to study these processes with modern equipment such as unmanned aerial vehicles, remote control boats and high resolution RTK GPS.  In addition, Lake Michigan experiences less and more variable ice cover during the winter along its southern shoreline than its northern shoreline.  This provides an opportunity to study the impact of ice on the sediment budget of cold coasts.  This presentation will summarize a decade of field, laboratory, and modeling studies on the sediment budget of Lake Michigan during one lake-level fluctuation.