The investigation of the sediments at the bottom of a lake provides a record of past geologic and climatic events that have influenced the lake and its associated drainage basin. The most recent sediments of a lake are indicators of man's impact on the surrounding watershed and emphasize the complex nature of interaction between chemical, biological, and physical processes that affect the distribution of sediments and their associated minerals and chemical species. The conclusions of this report are based on samples and measurements obtained during an extensive research cruise conducted in Lake Michigan by the Canada Survey Ship Limnos in August, 1975. Grab samples were collected at the intersections of a 12-by-12-km Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) grid over most of the lake bottom; a more detailed 7-by-7-km UTM grid was used in Green Bay and in the northeastern corner of the lake. Systematic chemical analysis was performed on the sediment samples over 23 elements. In Green Bay, elevated levels of a number of chemical elements in the sediments - notably arsenic, barium, manganese, and iron - suggest that a local geochemical process or source is important. One possible explanation is that ferromanganese nodules or concretions were observed in surface sediments from a number of locations in Green Bay and extreme northwestern Lake Michigan.
From 1983 until 1989 NOAA-NCEI compiled the NOAA-MMS Marine Minerals Geochemical Database from journal articles, technical reports and unpublished sources from other institutions. At the time it was the most extended data compilation on ferromanganese deposits world wide. Initially published in a proprietary format incompatible with present day standards it was jointly decided by AWI and NOAA to transcribe this legacy data into PANGAEA. This transfer is augmented by a careful checking of the original sources when available and the encoding of ancillary information (sample description, method of analysis...) not present in the NOAA-MMS database.
Supplement to: Cahill, Richard A (1981): Geochemistry of recent Lake Michigan sediments. llinois State Geological Survey, Circular No. 517, 104 pp
