Research by MS student Emilia DiBiasio and Dr. Fasong Yuan research will help us better understand the aquatic health of the Great Lakes

Graduate student Emilia DiBiasio and Dr. Fasong Yuan, a professor in the Department of Biological, Geological and Environmental Sciences (BGES), boarded the U.S. EPA's R/V Lake Guardian as visiting scientists representing Cleveland State University on the ship's spring 2023 sampling cruise on Lake Erie. As part of Dr. Yuan's Ohio Sea Grant-funded project, they collected sediment cores along a three station transect in central Lake Erie. 5 sediment cores, each 62-54 cm long, were extracted using a box corer across the nearshore to offshore boundary off the Cleveland coast. These cores will be processed and analyzed to reconstruct the history of hypoxia in Lake Erie over the past 200 to 300 years.

Additionally, water samples were captured from the surface, middle and bottom of the lake. These samples will be analyzed chemically and isotopically to improve our understanding of carbon dynamics in the lake, which is part of my Ms. DiBiasio's MS thesis research.

The Lake Guardian is the largest research vessel on the Great Lakes, equipped with multiple advanced sampling gears (including a Rosette water sampling system, Ponar sediment grab, box corer, and multi-core device) to help collect a range of environmental data of interests, anywhere across lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie and Ontario. As welcomed scientists aboard the cruise, the CSU researchers were accompanied by experienced marine technicians, dedicated crew members and fellow researchers from partnering universities including Cornell University, University of Minnesota Duluth, Michigan Tech Research Institute, University of Chicago, and Purdue University.