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Alpine lake sampling – Queenstown, part 2

– Laura MacDonald, Honours student, University of Otago

As a part of my honours project (supervised by Associate Professor Chris Moy, University of Otago) I was lucky enough to join on to the last three days of the Lakes380 trip to Queenstown where we visited and sampled six lakes.

On the first day we drove to the base of Mt Creighton and flew up in a helicopter to Lake Isobel (Image 1).

Image 1: Lake Isobel on day one of the trip.

The view of lake Wakatipu looking down Glenorchy way was amazing. Lake Isobel was where I first got introduced to the process of lake sediment sampling. What I could not believe was the physical work that was involved with collecting the sediment cores! Lake Isobel was the only lake for the day so we got to have a nice relax in the afternoon (after bleaching all the gear of course!).

On day two we got picked up by the helicopter near the start of the Routeburn track and flew up to Lake Harris (Image 2, Image 3).

Image 2: Lake Harris on day two of the trip.
Image 3: The view behind lake Harris
– looks like we may as well have been in the Lord of the Rings!

Lake Harris was a bit trickier to core than Lake Isobel as it was over 65 m deep but we got the cores and moved onto Lake Mackenzie after lunch. Lake Mackenzie was shallower but was tricky to core because the sediment consisted of sticky clays which the core barrel kept getting stuck in.

Day three was my favourite day of the trip. We started off near Kingston and flew up to a group of lakes in the Garvie Mountains. The lakes that we sampled included Lake Gow, Skeleton Lakes and Blue Lake. We even flew over a lake called Lake Laura! The scenery around these lakes was much different to what I was expecting as it was kind of like an alpine wetland (Image 4).

Image 4: One of the ponds beside lake Gow in the Garvie Mountains.

Coring and sampling went really well at these lakes and I got to pull up some cores from Skeleton Lakes which I’ll be using for my honours project (supervised by Associate Professor Chris Moy) to look at past climate and shoreline migrations in the lakes in Garvie Mountains (Image 5).

Image 5: Chris and I with the first core I collected at Skeleton Lakes.

Overall the trip was an awesome experience and I loved meeting and spending time with Susie, Marcus, Sean and Chris.  

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New manuscript on Rototoa (Auckland)

New manuscript on Lake Rototoa in Auckland has bee New manuscript on Lake Rototoa in Auckland has been published!!

A new manuscript titled - Resolving 500 years of anthropogenic impacts in a mesotrophic lake: Nutrients outweigh other drivers of lake change - led by Dr Rose Gregersen (Victoria University of Wellington) has been published in the prestigious journal Environmental Science & Technology.

The research explores the history of Rototoa, a lake in the Auckland region of Aotearoa-New Zealand. The researches combined sediment core analysis with historical data, and ecological experiments to determine what was causing the decline in lake health in recent decades. 

The researchers show that the health of the lake remained stable despite catchment deforestation and erosion, and the introduction of several non-native fish species. The most significant and sustained changes in lake health coincided with nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizers in the catchment.

Congratulations Rose on your excellent research!

Visit www.lakes380.com for a link to the full manuscript.

#Lakes380 #Cawthron #GNS #ScienceLife #NZscience #research #researchLife #VictoriaUniversityofWellington #Aucklandlakes #rototoa #paleolimnology #sedimentcores
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About

  • The Project
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    • Rangitīkei Iwi Rohe Study
    • Wairarapa Moana iwi rohe study
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