MOLAR Project:
Gossenköllesee
Mountain lakes as
sensors for environmental change
MOLAR Project:
Gossenköllesee
Mountain lakes as
sensors for environmental change
Gossenköllesee, Kűhtai,
Austria.
Summary: High mountain lakes are of interest because they represent the last natural aquatic ecosystems in Europe. Their sensitivity to environmental change makes them excellent indicators of ongoing changes in lake ecosystems.
Sampling lake waters and soil cores in the Austrian mountains near Innsbruck: this work was carried out as part of the MOuntain Lake Research (MOLAR) project. At the time I was a Ph.D. student of Dr. Peter Appleby, one of the programs main contributors. A number of soil cores were taken and sectioned on-site by Peter and myself in order to calculate an accurate atmospheric deposition flux of 210Pb for the area immediately surrounding the mountain lake. Due to its rocky bed it was not possible to core the lake. I was also responsible for taking water samples from the deepest part of the lake to be analyzed by Dr. Van den Berg's team at Liverpool's Oceanographic Labs.
Gossenköllesee Limnological
Research Station.
The MOLAR team utilized the University of Innsbruck's limnological station on the shore of Gossenköllesee (2417 m) in Kűhtai, Tyrol (47˚ 13`N, 11˚ 01`E) approximately 35 km from Innsbruck. The walk was about 1 hour from Kűhtai (2020 m), a climb of 397 m, when we reached the camp exhausted from carrying our heavy packs it was not so great seeing the helicopter flying in crammed with sampling equipment (it would have been nice to have gotten a ride up, or down for that matter).
Clockwise from top, (i) Me
in the research station, (ii) one of the soil core locations,
(iii) our air-lift to the middle of no where, (iv)+(v) two more soil core
locations.
The station was equipped with computing and phone capability (not much use if you wanted to order a pizza, I don't speak German/French anyway!). Their were accommodations for 6 people, it has a kitchen, dining room, shower, biocompost WC (restroom) and sauna.
Publications Resulting from this Study:
Environmental changes in an alpine lake (Gossenköllesee,
Austria)
over the last two centuries – the influence of air temperature on biological
parameters
Journal
of Paleolimnology 28(1): 147-160; Jun 2002
Karin A.
Koinig; Christian Kamenik; Roland Schmidt; Anna Agustí-Panareda; Peter Appleby;
Andrea Lami; Miroslava Prazakova; Neil Rose; Řyvind A. Schnell; Richard Tessadri;
Roy Thompson; Roland Psenner
Comparing palaeolimnological and instrumental evidence of climate
change for remote mountain lakes over the last 200 years
Journal
of Paleolimnology 28(1): 161-179; Jun 2002
Richard W.
Battarbee; John-Arvid Grytnes; Roy Thompson; Peter G. Appleby; Jordi Catalan;
Atte Korhola; H.J.B. Birks; Einar Heegaard; Andrea Lami
Links:
