Students learning hydrogeology at the Asylum Lake Preserve, on the right are students working at Asylum Lake
Hydrogeology. That's the scientific word for it. Back in the mid-'90s the Department of Geosciences at WMU developed a test site and buried metal drums and pipes in a distant corner of the prairie at the Preserve. Now, every summer, hydrologists from places such as Virginia, Minnesota, Peru, Japan, Denmark, and Norway, come to Kalamazoo for a seminar course that teaches them to monitor the level and quality of the groundwater, and how to detect oil drums, pipes and other items that have been buried underground which threaten the quality of the groundwater in places where the barrels or pipes are rusting or leaking.
Using electric, magnetic, and ground-penetrating radar tools they practice on a far corner of the prairie, learning how to detect the barrels and pipes. They take these skills back home to help clear the environment of buried trash that can cause pollution.
The barrels and pipes buried in the Preserve do not pose a threat to the Preserve. They are clean and nondegradable. You could think of them as "seeds" planted there to help train the growing number of professionals now being employed in the field of environmental studies and ecology.
A second project of the hydrogeology program in Asylum Lake Preserve studies its groundwater. Each summer a special seminar spends a week drawing samples from wells located in the preserve.
Wells? You may be wondering, will someone fall down one of these wells while innocently taking a walk or a run? The simple answer is "never."
These are not the kinds of open wells that people fall into. In fact, it would be a challenge to even find one of them, since the tops are covered with metal plates that are locked and bolted down flat to the surface.
When the water samples are taken to test the flow and quality of the groundwater, seminar students (people from all over the U.S. and the world) camp out in the field next to the wells. They take samples on regular intervals over a 40-hour period and work to protect the site.
To learn more about these efforts, you can visit the website of the WMU Department of Geology (https://wmich.edu/geology).