By Gerry Boyle '78

The research platform Colby Compass puts out onto the waters of Great Pond. A Colby research team is studying the Belgrade Lakes.

It's 4 a.m., the dawn sky a deep blue over Great Pond in Belgrade. In the center of the lake a boat makes a slow traverse as it has all night long, lights showing, like a fishing boat on the ocean. This boat is trolling, but not for fish. The vessel--actually a 24-foot pontoon boat custom built as a Colby research platform--is trolling for information.

Water temperature. Chemical content. Readings taken at precisely recorded times, depths and locations with an underwater electronic-sensor equipped "fish". Water samples pumped into sophisticated analytical equipment on the boat itself. Information fed into an onboard computer for analysis that student and faculty researchers hope will provide an unprecedented picture of how this lake works.

The ongoing Colby project could make the Belgrade Lakes chain one of the most scientifically scrutinized water bodies around. in Maine and serve as a model for scientists studying the effects of development on lake-water quality. "What we're trying to do is understand the dynamics of the lake over time," said Whitney King, the Miselis Professor of Chemistry.

It's a team effort, involving both the Chemistry and Geology departments with King , the Whipple-Coddington Professor of Geology Robert Gastaldo, Assistant Professor Jennifer Shosa (geology) and Senior Teaching Associate Bruce Rueger (geology) melding their expertise. Last summer, Colby student researchers were joined by Nathan Boland '01, a science teacher in Baton Rouge, La., and high school student interns he brought to Maine through a National Science Foundation grant.

With Colby student research assistants doing much of the work, the team studied chemical composition of lake water at various depths and times of day and season. A highly accurate map of the lake basin was produced, and test wells were drilled in wetland and uplands around the lakes to monitor the direction and variation in the flow of ground water into the Belgrade chain. Another phase of the study involved study of core samples from the bottom of the lakes to consider changes in the composition of sediments and how land use trends over decades--and even centuries--may have changed what sinks into the mud.