Why is Lake Michigan's water green?

Decades ago, Lake Michigan teemed with nutrients and green algae, casting a brownish-green hue that resembled the mouth of an inland river rather than a vast, open-water lake. read more

Lake Michigan has a surface area of 22,404 sq.mi (58,026 km 2); (13,237 square miles, 34,284 km 2 lying in Michigan state, 7,358 square miles, 19,056 km 2 in Wisconsin, 234 square miles, 606 km 2 in Indiana, & 1,576 square miles, 4,079 km 2 in Illinois) making it the largest lake entirely within one country by surface area (Lake Baikal, in Russia, is larger by water volume), and the fifth-largest lake in the world. read more

The type of green algae that most commonly turns your favorite lake into pea soup is the single celled variety. These tiny little micro-organisms live off of the nutrients in the lake and use the sunlight to photosynthesize, much like the plants and trees above the water. read more