Upper Peninsula Trip #7: Red Lake Water

While checking out a light house on Lake Michigan during our trip to the Upper Peninsula this past June my 6 year old noticed that the water near the shore (in a bay area) had a reddish tint to it instead of the expected blue.  She wanted to know why the water wasn't bluish like it was supposed to.  At the time I wasn't exactly sure, so I had to look it up when we got home.

There are a couple of explanations, so I'm not exactly sure of the cause of the reddish color in this water.  Normally water is bluish because water absorbs the red and orange colors from sunlight and reflects the blue.  Water can appear reddish if it has a higher iron content.  It can also appear reddish if it becomes contaminated with bacteria and becomes oxygen deprived.  This recently happened to a reservoir in Western Texas.

Lake Michigan is not oxygen deprived and it was only this small section of water near the shore that was red.  So I'm not sure what the exact cause was, but it was a great question from my daughter that led me to dig up some more information.