NW Missouri Times

A student and a faculty member from Northwest Missouri State University recently participated in a research expedition on Lake Erie, joining students from the University of Michigan and The University of Akron. The team aimed to study contaminants and shoreline erosion in the lake.

William Trabal, a senior geology major at Northwest Missouri State University, described his participation as an important learning opportunity. “I was grateful to be offered it and for the chance to get real-world experience,” Trabal said. “It seemed almost too good to be true until I was on the boat.”

The expedition took place in August and lasted nine days. Trabal joined Dr. Onema Adojoh, Assistant Professor of Geology at Northwest Missouri State University, along with other students, to collect sediment cores from seven locations across Lake Erie using a ship staffed by EPA personnel.

Dr. Adojoh led the survey of an area that extended from Detroit through part of Ontario to Rochester, New York. He explained the purpose behind their work: “Our curiosity is to verify and confirm if the changes in thickness of core sediments across the central lake basin can inform us about where nutrient-sediments and pollutants are accumulating and perhaps to affirm if the lake coastal shoreline is being eroded and may be a source of contaminant.”

Lake Erie formed about 12,500 years ago after glacial retreat. Since then, it has experienced various ecological, hydrological, and climatic changes that have contributed to current low-oxygen conditions affecting aquatic life.

Despite being the shallowest and smallest Great Lake by volume, Lake Erie is considered highly biologically productive. This makes it significant for studies focused on low-oxygen zones and human impacts on freshwater ecosystems.

The ongoing two-year project is funded by NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) and Ohio Sea Grant in collaboration with multiple universities.

“Our ongoing investigation would provide a succinct scientific understanding to verify why modern sediment accumulating on the lake floor is high and to establish at what periods in the Earth’s history shoreline erosion occurred,” Dr. Adojoh said. “By studying the eroded bottom layers of sediment collected at the bottom of Lake Erie, we are determined to publish contaminant issues about low oxygen and acidification of the lake over the course of thousands of years, and how eroded sediment patterns accumulated to tell the story.”

Trabal plans to continue analyzing findings related to low-oxygen zones and harmful algal blooms in Lake Erie while gaining experience working alongside scientists.

He is also learning techniques for collecting pollen samples and heavy metals from sediments—methods used for determining when low-oxygen events happened in relation to changes within aquatic ecosystems.

Reflecting on his time aboard ship collecting data with Dr. Adojoh’s guidance, Trabal noted: “The trip allowed me to take the concepts I had learned about in the classroom, such as sedimentology and pollen analysis, and put them front and center in a real-world scenario,” he said. “Many times we would be going through the sampling process and Dr. Adojoh would point out things that we had learned about in class that I didn’t even realize I was looking at.”

After graduation, Trabal intends to pursue a career focused on environmental conservation.