The death throes of a lake

One of our principal study sites, Milne Fiord, has undergone a swift and dramatic transformation. A calving event between July 30 and 31 resulted in an approximately 80 km^2 chunk of ice detaching from the Milne Ice Shelf (see https://wirl.carleton.ca/research/ice/ice-shelves/calving-2020/ for the astounding images). The impact of this event on the microbiology of the epishelf lake is unknown, and, unfortunately, we could not be there to characterize them due to the pandemic. Next year’s samples from the lake promise to be fascinating after such an enormous perturbation.