Science Friday: Glacial Lake Missoula & Drinking Water?

Glacial Lake Missoula at it's highest level at 4200ft, 

Image from Montana Natural History Center 

Science Friday! Have you ever wondered how Glacial Lake Missoula impacted Missoula’s drinking water? Today we are going to be exploring this question! 

Here’s a little bit of background- about 12,000 years ago, an ice dam holding 2,000 foot deep Glacial Lake Missoula within the valleys of Western Montana, burst. Flood waters moving at 386 million cubic feet per second or 60 times the flow of the Amazon River rushed overland tearing away soils and mountainsides. 

The flood deposited millions of tons of cobble and gravel, which over time, filled the Missoula valley and created the Missoula valley aquifer which now supports more than 40,000 households. 

Every year rainfall and snowmelt flow out of the Clark Fork River and local streams to seep down through glacial deposits and recharge this underground water source. This natural storage tank contains billions of gallons of fresh water, which in some places is only 40 feet below our feet! 

As spring is sneaking up on us, and all of that snow melts, it’s fun to think that as it travels into rivers and gets absorbed by those ancient deposits set as a foundation by the glacial lake floods millions of years ago! Cool! 

Information cited from City of Missoula & Montana Natural History Center’s page glaciallakemissoula.org.

Science Friday: What do birds do in the winter?

By Kat Leister

Happy Science Friday! With the passing of the Spring equinox, the days are getting longer and warmer, and we are hearing more birdsong above our heads! As we soak in the sights and sounds of spring, we wonder, where have the birds been until now? How do animals that weigh 15 grams stay alive in below freezing temperatures?

Shivering: just like people, birds shiver to stay warm! Though, with much higher metabolisms, they are able to do this to keep their body at around 100ºF even when the air around them is 0ºF! 

Food storage: Birds store food throughout the year in what are called caches, places within the dirt or other debris that they can return to when food supply is low! Chickadees in particular have a large hippocampus, the area of the brain responsible for spatial memory, and it actually grows in the winter time to help them remember where they’ve stored their food!

Fluffing feathers: in fluffing up their feathers, birds create pockets of air that trap their body heat and keep them better insulated. More winter-tolerant species secrete an oil on their feathers that help weather-proof them!

Roosting/cuddling: just like most animals, birds will cuddle to keep warm by exchanging body heat! They can also lower their otherwise fast metabolism to help conserve energy in times of low food acquisition. 

You can help birds through the winter by providing high energy foods like suet, peanuts, and sunflower seeds! Birds also need fresh water all year around, so a warm, clean birdbath is also helpful! 

As Spring gets swinging, we’re excited to watch the world come alive as the bugs, birds, and other animals become more active! 

Thanks for tuning into this week’s Science Friday! See you again next week! 

Information and pictures gathered from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

2023 World Water Day: A Note From WEN

WEN wants to wish everyone a Happy World Water Day! This year’s mission is Accelerating Change to solve water and sanitation problems that our world is facing.

As a planet, we have come together to create a Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) that aspires to secure clean, constant access to potable water for every single community. Unfortunately, we are seriously behind in meeting our water and sanitation goal for 2030. 

This year we are accelerating change by calling people to action! This means asking citizens to stay curious about where their water comes from and where it is going and keeping watersheds clean by disposing of refuse and hazardous materials appropriately! You can engage today and every day with your local rivers by joining WEN in Citizen Science endeavors, sharing the story of the waters that replenish our groundwater supply and keep our ecosystems thriving!

How you use, consume, and manage water can impact entire watersheds. We’re so lucky to have a clean aquifer that readily recharges, and plumbing that brings it right to our cups and flushes it away. This World Water Day, we encourage you to stay curious about our access to water and how it may be different from others. Keeping our local watershed cool, crisp, clean, and connected is the first step to reaching our SDG for the world!

Learn more here: https://www.worldwaterday.org/

Science Friday: Assessment on Stream Health on Rattlesnake Creek

Maps by Christopher Miller, EVST UMT Alum

Happy Science Friday! Today we are highlighting an assessment of the health of Rattlesnake Creek as it relates to the last 100 years, synthesized by an alumni of the EVST program at the University of Montana, Christopher Miller! 

Most of the knowledge of the Rattlesnake is based on aerial photos that have been archived over the last century. With these photos and various monitoring efforts beginning within the last few decades, conclusions can be made on various characteristics such as biotic species, stream sinuosity, and land use in the surrounding area. 

Trends in fish populations show the effects of the Rattlesnake Dam on migrations. It was noted that the presence of the dam prevented movement of population between upper and lower reaches of the river, but with a lack of monitoring prior to its installation, it is difficult to know the true influence of the dam on fish populations. 

The subtle curves of the river from a topographic perspective are unique to the low slope of the creek, where the sinuosity experienced on the Rattlesnake is more common on steeper slopes.  This was the case at the beginning of the scope of this study, about a century ago, and has not changed much since. This means there was likely a lot of development along the banks of this river starting around the 1920’s.

As seen above, the most significant changes in the area of interest is the way in which land is used. Grasslands were managed by Missoulian’s since the 1920’s, but a more urban characteristic is seen developed between now and then. This means more people, homes, and utility systems within the basin! 

We look forward to the monitoring efforts of WEN to be used for future analysis like this! Can’t wait to see what Rattlesnake Creek trends look like in another hundred years!