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The mystery of the moss
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| H&N photo by Lee Juillerat Mark Buktenica, Crater Lake’s aquatic biologist, examines moss taken from a section of underwater growth in Crater Lake. |
Crater Lake study looks for answers in underwater growth
By LEE JUILLERAT
H&N Regional Editor
Call it the mystery of the moss.
After all, it sounds like science fiction: Thick patches of mosses that grow in large, dense mats below the surface of crystalline Crater Lake; mysterious cylindrical holes that spiral deep into sections of those mosses; core samples that ooze pungent odors from unknown millennium of growth and decay.
“It’s certainly like no other environment I’ve seen,” says Mark Buktenica, Crater Lake National Park’s aquatic ecologist.
“We don’t have any good guesses on how old it is or how long it took to form. The one thing we do know is it’s younger than 7,700 years,” Girdner said, referring to the age of the lake, which was created by the eruption of prehistoric Mount Mazama that many years ago.
The mystery of the moss has intrigued lake researchers since 1988, when ROVs, or remotely operated vehicles, discovered the beds in 1988. Other dives, including those in tiny submarines like the one Buktenica took to the lake bottom, have fed the desire to learn more.
“The clarity of the lake is a big interest,” oceanographer Robert “Bob” Collier of Oregon State University said, referring to Crater Lake’s reputation as the nation’s clearest lake. “We hadn’t really come to grips with the importance of the moss. For years we’ve been promising each other we’d investigate it. Once we convinced ourselves with how extensive is, the next step was to see how deep it was and core it.
“The more we find the more I’m convinced these moss beds are really, really old,” Collier said. “I think they could be as old as the lake.”
Assisting with last week’s core collection work in Fumerole Bay off Wizard Island was Amy Myrbo of the University of Minnesota. She hopes to study some of the core samples, which will be sent to various labs. Carbon 14 dating will be used on pine pollens from those cores to determine ages of the living and peat moss.
“Hopefully by next spring, we’ll know something,” Myrbo said.
“It’s certainly exciting,” Buktenica said. “There are not a lot of things you can study these days that you know nothing about.”
Collier agrees, noting, “Nothing we’ve found has illuminated the answers. It has only illuminated the mystery.”
From Buktenica, the only person who’s seen the deepest reaches of the nation’s deepest lake, 1,943 feet, that’s a perceptive, in-depth observation.
Sample collecting
Buktenica was a member of a team of scientists that spent last week in the park’s research vessel, the Neuston, collecting core samples from what’s known as Deep Moss. Earlier this summer, he and Scott Girdner, the park’s fisheries biologist, made 120-foot-deep scuba dives in moss-laden region around Wizard Island to verify maps of moss layers made by U.S. Geological Survey cameras last summer.
Layers of 3- to 6-foot-deep moss lay atop peat-like moss that dips another 20 feet between depths of 100 and 460 feet, mostly on submerged volcanic platforms and underwater fumeroles in a crescent shape around the island.
“It’s more than scientific curiosity,” Girdner said, noting the mosses, which some speculate could be the world’s oldest living organisms, could help researchers know more about the lake and its environment. “This is trying to add another piece to the puzzle.”
Moss age
Along with determining the distribution of the moss, researchers want to determine its age.
After all, it sounds like science fiction: Thick patches of mosses that grow in large, dense mats below the surface of crystalline Crater Lake; mysterious cylindrical holes that spiral deep into sections of those mosses; core samples that ooze pungent odors from unknown millennium of growth and decay.
“It’s certainly like no other environment I’ve seen,” says Mark Buktenica, Crater Lake National Park’s aquatic ecologist.
“We don’t have any good guesses on how old it is or how long it took to form. The one thing we do know is it’s younger than 7,700 years,” Girdner said, referring to the age of the lake, which was created by the eruption of prehistoric Mount Mazama that many years ago.
The mystery of the moss has intrigued lake researchers since 1988, when ROVs, or remotely operated vehicles, discovered the beds in 1988. Other dives, including those in tiny submarines like the one Buktenica took to the lake bottom, have fed the desire to learn more.
Lake clarity
“The clarity of the lake is a big interest,” oceanographer Robert “Bob” Collier of Oregon State University said, referring to Crater Lake’s reputation as the nation’s clearest lake. “We hadn’t really come to grips with the importance of the moss. For years we’ve been promising each other we’d investigate it. Once we convinced ourselves with how extensive is, the next step was to see how deep it was and core it.
“The more we find the more I’m convinced these moss beds are really, really old,” Collier said. “I think they could be as old as the lake.”
Assisting with last week’s core collection work in Fumerole Bay off Wizard Island was Amy Myrbo of the University of Minnesota. She hopes to study some of the core samples, which will be sent to various labs. Carbon 14 dating will be used on pine pollens from those cores to determine ages of the living and peat moss.
“Hopefully by next spring, we’ll know something,” Myrbo said.
“It’s certainly exciting,” Buktenica said. “There are not a lot of things you can study these days that you know nothing about.”
Collier agrees, noting, “Nothing we’ve found has illuminated the answers. It has only illuminated the mystery.”
From Buktenica, the only person who’s seen the deepest reaches of the nation’s deepest lake, 1,943 feet, that’s a perceptive, in-depth observation.
Sample collecting
Buktenica was a member of a team of scientists that spent last week in the park’s research vessel, the Neuston, collecting core samples from what’s known as Deep Moss. Earlier this summer, he and Scott Girdner, the park’s fisheries biologist, made 120-foot-deep scuba dives in moss-laden region around Wizard Island to verify maps of moss layers made by U.S. Geological Survey cameras last summer.
Layers of 3- to 6-foot-deep moss lay atop peat-like moss that dips another 20 feet between depths of 100 and 460 feet, mostly on submerged volcanic platforms and underwater fumeroles in a crescent shape around the island.
“It’s more than scientific curiosity,” Girdner said, noting the mosses, which some speculate could be the world’s oldest living organisms, could help researchers know more about the lake and its environment. “This is trying to add another piece to the puzzle.”
Moss age
Along with determining the distribution of the moss, researchers want to determine its age.
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