The research aims to serve as a guide to the sources (archival and sedimentary) about Lake Tovel, a lake in the heart of Brenta Dolomites, famous all over the world for the phenomenon of the redness of its waters; this fact has fascinated the most eminent scientists of the world for decades and it has animated many myths and legends.
In order to reconstruct the past of one of the most interesting natural phenomena in the history of lakes, the collaboration of researchers has been valuable, as well as the studies of scientists of the past, of local stories, of literature and especially of archival sources.
The starting point of the research was the Water Research Institute (IRSA) Historical Archive in Verbania, in this Institute the papers relating to the first studies about lake Tovel are preserved, or better. Furthermore, it was the first research on the biology of the lake, commissioned by Tridentino Museum Of Natural Science to Edgardo Baldi, a scientist working in the Thirties through the Fifties of the Twentieth century.
(Canale et al. 2018, Il lago di Tovel – Memorie, Documenti e Sedimenti, CNR Edizioni).
However, if we wanted to go backward in time…and if we wanted, for example, to answer the following questions: what is the origin of the lake? What are the causes of the disappearance of the phenomenon of redness of its waters? — the only documents are not enough. We must resort to other types of sources, such as those used by paleolimnology, the discipline that studies sediments and materials which have been accumulated on the bottom of a lake over time. The sediments represent a sort of natural archive, which provide evidence of the life of the lake and the territory that surrounds it.
Sediments are taken by means of corers and the “cores” (so called in scientific jargon) are brought into the laboratory where they can provide data on the life of lake basins through specific analyses.
From the encounter of two disciplines, Archival science and Paleolimnology, from the comparison of the respective descriptive methods and languages and from the analysis of the respective sources, we can try to reconstruct the history of the lake through time.
Research results conducted with these criteria constitute the most substantial part of the contents of this portal.
In four sections of the website, all the places that have interested the search are reported and the documents consulted are digitally available for users.
In the section “Sedimentary archives” it is explained how scientists work and manage to reconstruct the life of lakes through the sediments, going back into the past even thousands of years, with particular reference to lake Tovel.
Moreover, the website offers some thematic paths for educational purposes: a reconstruction of history through postcards, news about the phenomenon of redness and the preservation of the lake on newspapers, from 1900 to the present day; the lake… and the bear… and much more.
Tovel… an archive at the bottom of the lake.
