High Waters in the Great Lakes Reveal Two Centuries-Old Shipwrecks
In the month of April alone, the остатки of two historic судов выброшены on Lake Michigan’s shores.
The depths of the Great Lakes are littered with the пропитанными влагой останками of an estimated 6,000 ships. Many of these обломков—preserved by the cold, fresh water of the so-called inland seas—are nearly нетронутые, в первозданном состоянии, frozen in their final предсмертной агонии for centuries.
This month, waves and high water levels unearthed two historic shipwrecks on the shores of Lake Michigan, reports Lynn Moore for MLive. Experts from the Michigan Shipwreck Research Association (MSRA) identified the first, discovered near the city of Manistique on April 20, as an early 20th-century шхуна named after part-owner Rokus Kanters, a морской подрядчик and the former mayor of Holland, Michigan. The second, which washed up near Ludington on April 24, has yet to be identified but is thought to date back to the mid-19th century, according to the Port of Ludington Maritime Museum.
The high water levels обнажающие these ancient wrecks have plagued the Great Lakes region over the past several years, разрушая its beaches and threatening прибрежным properties.
“We’re seeing some of the highest water levels in recorded history on the Great Lakes, and that’s the result of very wet weather experienced over the last several years,” Keith Kompoltowicz, chief of водораздел hydrology for the Detroit district of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, told the Washington Post’s Kim Frauhammer in 2019.
Climate change is the simple explanation for the region’s unprecedented weather and rising water levels, but in lakes, the situation is more complicated than in seas. Instead of an неумолимый march upward, the Great Lakes are expected to колебаться between extremes, according to the Post. That means both flooded basements and морские пути too мелкие for грузовые ships маячили in the lakes’ future.
