Posted
on February 2, 2015
One
thing is for sure – our birthday boy, François-Alphonse
Forel, did NOT grow up hoping to become a limnologist. As a matter of
fact, when he was growing up, there was no such thing as limnology!
Because
this Swiss scientist, born on this date in 1841, grew up to invent
limnology!
I
bet you've never heard of this science before, but it's simply the
study of lakes.
 |
| Lake Geneva |
Forel
was born and raised in a town on the shores of Lake Geneva. He worked as a
professor of medicine at a university on that same lake. I imagine he
was good at his job...
But
what he really loved was the lake!
So
he ended up investigating the biology of the lake. The chemistry of
the lake. The circulation of water in the lake, and the sedimentation
(how particles of dirt and sand that are suspended in water settle to
the lake bottom) of the lake. Most important, having studied all
sorts of physical and life science aspects to the lake, the studied
the interrelation of all these things. How did water circulation
affect living creatures? How did circulation affect the chemistry of
the lake, and the sedimentation process? Forel studied these and many
other relationships between living and non-living parts of a lake
environment.
 |
| Lake Superior, arguably the largest lake in the world. |
He
discovered that there were currents of water with different density
in Lake Geneva (and, it turns out, all lakes). Sometimes water has
different density because it has different temperatures—in other
words, cold water flowing into a lake from an ice pack is more dense
than the warmer water already in the lake.
Forel
also discovered and named seiches, the standing waves that typically
occur in lakes and other enclosed or partially enclosed bodies of
water.
 |
| This is one of my favorite lakes, Crater Lake in Oregon. |
Finally,
Forel developed the Forel-Ule scale (with another scientist) to
evaluated the color of a lake or other body of water. Above is Moraine Lake in Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada. I think it has some of the most beautiful colored water I've ever seen!
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