The excursion will take place on Wednesday October 18th, 2017. We will visit the beautiful Lake District north of Berlin, the IGB facilities at Lake Stechlin and relax with fingerfood at the lakeside. Below, you will find more detailed information about the excursion sites and further links.

The IGB at Lake Stechlin

The Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB) is one of the principal German centres for research on limnic ecosystems, and unites hydro-physicists, chemists, microbiologists, fish ecologists and fish biologists. A combination of fundamental and applied research supports its long-term goal of management of aquatic ecosystems, via restoration, development, and protection.

The IGB was established in 1992 in Berlin (Department Ecohydrology and others) and Neuglobsow at Lake Stechlin based on the recommendations of the German Science Council. The Limnological Research Station "Lake Stechlin", which was founded by the German Academy of Sciences of Berlin in 1959, became part of the new institute as “Department of Limnology of Stratified Lakes", now  “Department of Experimental Limnology”. Researchers from other IGB departments and other institutions from all over the world here find the facilities and the support to investigate physical and biological processes of stratified lakes.

By installing in Lake Stechlin the globally unique experimental facility LakeLab in 2012, with funding from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, IGB ventured into technologically and scientifically uncharted territory: the large-scale environmental experiments undertaken here by our scientists are supposed to be as realistic as possible.

http://www.flake.igb-berlin.de/Lake17draft/excursion_files/image002.jpg


 

Lake Stechlin, Theodor Fontane, and the legend of the Red Cock

Who would be able to describe Lake Stechlin and the landscape around it better than the famous German novelist and poet Theodor Fontane, who was born not far from the lake and spend many years of his life in this region? Less known by the experts, but clearly evident from the following lines taken from two of Fontane's books, is the fact that Fontane also featured a second, secret career as a physical limnologist:

http://www.flake.igb-berlin.de/Lake17draft/excursion_files/image004.jpg

In the north of the County of Ruppin, close to the Mecklenburg border, stretches a chain of lakes several miles long from the little town of Gransee to Rheinsberg (and even beyond), in the midst of a thinly populated woodland area. There are but a few ancient villages dotted here and there, otherwise the region is solely devoted to forestry and furnaces for the manufacture of glass and tar.

One of the lakes which make up this chain is called "Stechlin". It lies between low banks, rising steeply like a quay in one place only, and is ringed round by old beech trees whose branches, bowed by their own weight, touch the lake with their tips.