The Mysteries Of North America's Great Lakes | Naked Science | Spark 

As a Brit I'm constantly amazed how many Americans simply don't appreciate what a magnificent variety of landscapes they live among ! From the Great Lakes to the Rockies , the deserts of South West and swamps in Florida etc. America is an amazing place !! Don't listen to the whining critics !! 👍🇬🇧 !

It's no mystery. The Great Lakes are *entirely Canada's fault.* For thousands of years after Zambonis resurfaced ice rinks, the shaved ice was dumped outside, eh?

As an Ohio native who grew up hearing the Michigan-bashing tales, I never had the chance to visit until I was an adult. Michigan blew me away! From crossing the Mighty Mac to learning what a Yooper was and trying my first pastie. Camped on the shores of Lake Superior near the pictured rocks during the summer solstice. Skipped out on Florida this year and plan on returning, hopefully this time I can find an Agate!

Crazy to think this episode is almost 15 years old, it really does bring back a lot of memories of watching childhood science documentaries. The music, the narrator, the effects, everything. Glad to have found this channel!

Failed to mention Nestle and their giant siphon…

I lived the first 18 years of my life up between the Copper Harbor area and the Soo. Now I live right on Lake Michigan. I cant imagine being away from these Insanely beautiful lakes.

MN born and raised and my fav city is Duluth, and I am in awe of lake Superior and how destructive and powerful it can be!

Michigan is hands down the most BEAUTIFUL state in the summer, combined beautiful Forrest, farm lands and sand dunes and Beaches Michigan truly is a unique state and #1. I love winter so makes it even better when you get dumped on by lake effect snow.

And at one time the ice sheets thickness was supposedly at 7 miles thick, a lot thicker than 2 miles. The sheer weight of the sheet was so heavy it pushed the land around the great lakes down. The land to this day is still rising upwards from the weight being gone.

Some of us living in the Great lakes Region are so lucky to enjoy these Beautiful lakes & some have Gorgeous State Parks such as Pictured Rocks National Lake Shore Off Lake Superior!!! States like California, Nevada & Arizona are facing A water 💦 crisis 💯🤓!!!!

I'm in West Michigan, about 25 miles from the eastern coast of Lake Michigan... One of the craziest things about the Great Lakes for those of us living downwind, is the affect they have on weather. Even today, for instance, the sun is out now - in 5 minutes, it may be snowing so hard that you can't see 100 yards, and then sunny-ish again 5-10 min later. This will continue most of the day. There is no weather system in the area... but there are 30+ mph, 10 degree winds going over 40 degree water - so we get bands of heavy snow only a couple miles wide, over and over. Even when there's not enough instability to make snow, there WILL be clouds. From Nov-April, Western Michigan is the cloudiest place in America and one of the cloudiest on the entire planet. It's pretty depressing, almost never seeing the sun for months, but it's not all bad - the water staying relatively warm like that means that when it's 20 below zero right on the other side of the lake in Wisonsin, it's still 10 above here. And in the summer heat, storms that drop tornadoes in IL & WI get out over the 70 degree water and frequently lose the punch they had, saving us from a lot of the worst damage. And, of course, there is having beautiful beaches at a freshwater sea to enjoy all summer.

You can take the man out of Michigan, but you can never take Michigan out of the man. Born and raised here, and I’ll be buried here a true gem to the continental United States. No other state in the lower 48 can really compare and I’ve been to most . Colorado and it’s pure beauty would be a close second in my book..

I live a mile south of the Great Lake Ontario! Proud to be a Great Laker!

Growing up on lakes Michigan and Superior and being interested in geology, I am convinced that the state of Lower Michigan is a giant impact crater from something that hit our planet and punched a giant hole into the edge of the land mass that would become Canada. After that sea water poured in and created the salt layer that underlies the state. I even approached a professor from the University of Chicago about my theory... he actually said it was his theory too and could be entirely possible. If you look ate the rock formation layers it looks just like an impact crater. Other academics say I'm wrong, but then go on to say that no one really knows the processes that created these unique features... but I'm wrong.

I’ve lived in the Chicago area all of my life and I took Lake Michigan for granted until I started to visit other states and see how differently water is treated elsewhere.

I was born and raised near Detroit but my parents were from upper Michigan so I've been going there since I was born twice a year once in the summer and once during deer hunting. What amazes me is the place never changed, I'm 76 years old.

Too many name and place bloopers, but this vid was better than most RU-vid presentation on the Lakes.

I live right on lake Erie in huron, Ohio. This was super cool to learn about!

As a Wisconsinite I feel so lucky to live near the driftless region and the Great Lakes.

Dude. Sending support, love, and kindness from Lexington, Michigan, USA

I was a child when my family visited Niagara Falls in 1969, when the falls were shutoff. It was a sight that told the story.

There’s always something surreal about seeing a place on a documentary, tv show, or movie that one has personally visited.

what they dont go into is the area was under a massive inland sea during the cretaceous period , the Niagara Escarpment is an ancient coral reef cutting north from Niagara through Southern Ontario to beyond Georgian Bay.... at places its a few hundred feet above the current level of Lake Huron .....

The early lakes were salt water. We mine salt below the lakes and rock layer covering it.

The tinfoil example annoys me because he's not even trying to hide the fact that he is just barely setting the 'clean' ice on the foil while he is actively pushing the 'dirty' ice down to cause as much damage as possible. XD

IM FROM MICHIGAN & WE LOVE OUR LAKES

EXCELLENT - really informative. Thank you, Spark

This documentary reminds me of falling asleep on a desk in highschool

They should have added St Davids creek that was where Lake Iroquois "Ontario" flowed into Lake Erie prior to Niagara falls existence. Niagara falls was formed around 4500-6000 years ago with the aid of Glacial lake Tonawanda.

Lake ONTARIO is the best of them all!! I've lived on its southern shore for 74 years, and this will be my forever home. Hurray for the great state of New York and its lake-sharing neighbor, Canada!!

I live on the south Shore of Lake Erie & I'm 48. I can stand witness to this fact!! Don't have some of our fishing spots anymore & the residents on the shore have been dumping broken up concrete from old buildings that get torn down to try to slow down the erosion for decades!!! GREAT VIDEO!!! ❤ (and I also hear that residents along the shore in Cuyahoga County have to deal with rats)😝 I'm trying to move Southeast about an hour!! The city areas really have too many people in them!!

Absolutely Fascinating. Living in Michigan , not far from Lake Mich , I Loved this from Start to Finish.

Thank you for this. I grew up near Lake Erie in Lorain County Ohio. As a child I saw the lake heavily polluted because of industry,Now thanks to changes in industry and the Zebra mussel she is a beautiful clear blue. Still not pristine. My father who was born in either Fairport Harbor or Lorain in 1895 and loved the lake told stories of fishing for yellow perch and the now extinct Blue Pike; and saw Sturgeon piled up along the shore because it was considered a trash fish good only for fertilizer. For reference I was born in 1946, a post war baby boomer to my mother born in 1908 . my father fought at Chateau Thierry Sept 14 to 18 , 1918.

Ahhh, Niagara Falls is between Lakes Erie and Michigan?? Really. Better check their maps. Last time I saw one, they're between Lakes Erie and ONTARIO. Good editing work there!

Answers many questions. Thank you for putting this on RU-vid.

Excellent !! I thoroughly enjoyed this documentary. The Great Lakes have always fascinated me. Thank you !!

Glacial grooves don"t exist only on Kelley's Island. Middle Bass Island has them. They aren't as grand as on Kelley's but they are there. You just have to know where to look. I worked for a bit on a college practicum in the very late 1980s on Middle Bass. Lonz Winery was still operating.

Nestle - that"s where the water is going.

This was quite interesting. Thank you for supplying this video!

thank you ...i live in michigan and you just explained everything we never learned in school...keep up the great work very interesting and knoledgable

I know approximately where the glacier stopped on the west US coast. I lived in Seattle and bought a new house. Just to dig a hole to plant a bush took an hour! The ground around Kirkland (across Lake Washington) is practically solid round rocks. I moved to Oregon a not a rock was to be found! I was so happy.

Should have mentioned the Alpena-Amberly Ridge which cut Lake Huron in half

Such a great documentary!

I am from Michigan and have not seen any major changes in the Great Lakes water level in the past 30 years. Some years the level is up and some it’s down.

The Wild Rice evidence is interesting, but the premise doesn't doesn't "hold water" (pun intended) for me. I'm a Landscape Architect with most of my experience in natural restoration and I have some familiarity with Wild Rice. I've planted it on my farm in a shallow and very calm pond less than an acre in size, and it did just fine. Wild rice was and is to this day, cultivated by Native people here in Ontario in muddy shallow lakes, that is actually where it tends to thrive. It likes nutrient rich, muddy bottomed fairly calm water at depths ranging from consistently saturated mud, to about 60cm or 2 feet of depth, it can grow in greater depth or less moisture, but a heavily wave battered shoreline is certainly not what it likes.

My Grandpappy had a cabin on Kelleys Island back in the 60s. These grooves were ALWAYS known as The Glacial Grooves. When we were kids, only about a hundred feet of these were uncovered, but since have have been excavated more for research.

This was rather spell-binding. Just great. Thank you

We really don't know the cause of such geological features but it's fun to listen to people who claim do

I LIVED ABOUT A YEAR IN SUPERIOR WISCONSIN WHICH WAS CLOSE TO LAKE SUPERIOR. I EVEN GOT TO GO SAILING FOR THE DAY ON LAKE SUPERIOR

at 7:50 'leaves behind glacial melt water' forming kettle lakes. This misses something key. As glacier melt/recede they leave behind erratics, rocks and boulders that have been transported. In this rubble are also large chunks of ice left behind like boulders. But unlike boulders this ice melts leaving a void a depression that fills with water as a lake. At the bottom of some of these lakes buried in the rubble and silt are bits of ice left over from the last ice age. The rubble and silt insulate. Something else that is missing. By far the most powerful tool of ice and glaciers is the freezing thawing cycle that occurs along the margins. If you've ever climb or hiked along an arete, usually called sawtooth, jagged, or in Japan Dikiretto, you'll notice that a lot of the of rock is loose. This is because the thawing cycle allows water to fill in any crack and the freezing cycle expands the volume widening the cracks. Quarrying. The aretes are still there because this is what the glaciers on both sides were working at when they began to recede. This is where all the gravel, sand and boulders in glacier ice comes from.

Love this! I grew up 30 minutes or so away from Lexington harbor. Didn't know this. Fascinating...Very interesting to know the geography & history of the Great lakes!

When I went to Illinois to see my son graduate from Navy boot camp, we stopped on the shore of Lake Michigan in Chicago. I was simply floored. I stressed to my sister, "This is FRESH WATER! No lake should be so big that you can't see the other side!" We saw ocean-going vessels off in the distance. I mean, these Lakes are seriously humongous. I live in Ohio now, bordering Lake Erie and I'm sad to say I haven't actually seen it yet, but I'm hoping to some day.

"the perfect crime, the ice bullet", he said. i can think of 1 better, the air bullet ✌️🐝➕

Love how hard he pushed on the "dirty ice" compared to letting the smooth ice just side, even with that barley tore the tin foil! It took so long into the video to get to glacier when we all knew that already! 🤦

Interesting! I grew up right where the lakes got diverted and became the St Lawrence. (Kingston Ontario)

That's absolutely amazing ❗❗ I tip my hat to those incredible scientists, well done....a bunch of huge lakes now have a complete story, timeline and a future.... cheers to you 🤟🎶

Glacier's are lakes melting... glaciers carved the bottom of lakes cutting into the rock's learned this in middle school in 1987.

I live at the mouth of the St. Clair river and the water levels did lower by almost a foot almost 10 years ago but have come back up to normal if not a little higher. One big change is the ice, the river used to freeze solid every year without fail. The first year it didn't was winter 91/92 with mostly heavy pack ice flowing by and every since the pack ice has become thinner and more sparse often seeing the water between the ice. This year there was practically no ice, a couple of days of thin ice that formed along Lake Huron shorelines was about it.

Fascinating episode!

This was very interesting, Thank You!!

I hate programs that keep repeating a question before going on to address it.

Little tazz jumping up saying "I know, I know." Looking around the class and everyone is screwing around, slowly withdraws hand.

we needed this because no one ever talks about these lakes

Fantastic episode!!

Oh wait, we forgot when the Army Core of Engineers decided to dredge it... RIP great lakes

The rising of the western lakes, aside from ice compression, could possibly be a result of magmatic activity under yellowstone. Its far away, but all solids are elastic to a degree and the energy driving that rise could strech that far.

Very well done. I knew about glaciation ‘&rebounded. But learned a great deal. Thank you!

Thank you I agree with your versions of what might have happened

Clean salt free refreshing water. When swimming no dry skin, burning eyes, and salty dirty taste like an ocean. Pure michigan.

I live on the shores of lake superior and its awesome

Excellent video. Very interesting and informative. Thank you.

Lifelong MI resident. I'll guard these Lakes with my life if it ever comes down to it. If you plan on visiting, I sincerely hope you treat them with the same reverence. Lake Michigan beaches get decimated by tourists. Their kids dredge channels from our streams to the lake and decimate the local habitat. Our lakes are a more sensitive ecosystem than an ocean or sea, even if you can't see across them.

So many ads 🫤

Canada’s Niagara Falls does provide us electricity.😂

Excellent!

Great stuff - grew up sailing the North Channel of Lake Huron, widely considered one of the most beautiful boating/sailing regions of the world. Killarney is just at the eastern tip, stunning white mountains line the northern side (Lacloche Mountains) - some geological evidence indicating they were higher than Everest millions of years ago. The drive around the northern shore of Lake Superior is rugged and absolutely stunning.

It seems to me we need to radically raise the temperature of the atmosphere to bring the lakes back to the level they were before humans had an impact on North America. It's the equitable thing to do.

9:05 "it drops it's load" 💦

The house I grew up in was on an escarpment that formed an ancient shore of Lake Erie. Nowadays Lake Erie is about 5 miles from that location.

Crazy. I love Michigan. The lakes are stunning. Although Lake St Clair is very polluted. Huron is as well. Lake michigan is ASTONISHING! Looks like the ocean. Superior is very ridged. It scares me.

So where is the 5500 cubic miles of moraine material the glacier carved out of the bedrock to create the Great Lakes? This idea makes no sense to me.

..finally a science/nature doc that doesn't mention climate change rubbish...TY !

I camp on manitolin Island regularly, and yes, the big water can be crazy scary sometimes

I'm not usually into these kind of documentaries, but they kept it interesting. 👌 🧐 📚📚📚

I didn't know I was going to watch this whole thing. But I am glad I did

There is also a theory that a comet or asteroid strike in that area wiped out the Clovis culture around that time, and that the object hit the thick ice sheet. The crater was mainly in the ice, and subsequent movement of the ice would have erased the effects on the ground. In addition to the expected adverse effects of such an event on humans in the area, diversion of the drainage patterns would have caused even more problems.

Excellent research, thanks.

End marins were a big part of forming kettle lakes. They are chunks of ice & debris left by retreating glaciers. I love the field stones left too ☺️

In Killarney Provincial Park, the bedrock also has deep grooves from glaciers. Courtesy of Half Vast Flying

I could see my house on your map. Nestled nicely between Erie and Ontario on The Niagara River.

Lake Ontario is the closest to me and it’s breathtaking seeing it. Literally like a mini ocean, you cant even see the other side, it’s crazy

Lived near Lake Erie my whole life. I have seen Lakes Ontario, and Huron. I REALLY want to visit Lake Superior, and Michigan someday. Nothing beats camping on the lakes during a nice summer night.

I’m with Dr. Allen West!! Impacting was definitely a huge part of it

An interesting similarity to the Great Lake's drowned forests is in Bermuda where the rising Atlantic Ocean covered cedar groves 7,000 years ago. Cedar stumps and roots have been raised from Bermuda's shallow shelf areas.

Native americans would have been able to witness this!!! That is incredible.

Retreating glaciers carved the grooves in the rock, you can see more of that in areas of the Rocky Mts, and in what is called the Canadian Sheild. They used teach us about this in Cdn schools back in the 1960s and 70s. It was part of the coriculum in Jr, High School (Middle School for the Americans)

Live in niagara region Canada my entire life , niagara gorge is auch a beautiful hike so different than anywhere else ive been in the world

7:12 light pressure.. next one... pressed down firmly..😂😂

In Peggie's Cove NS Canada you can walk among the large bolders left behind by the ice.

Very nice video. As an X Michiganer I enjoyed this.