Research and Projects

EMAP III—Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology and Paleoclimatology Project
Phase III (Lake Kournas, Crete, Greece)

Following EMAP I, EMAP II was focused on Lake Kournas, the only significant freshwater lake on Crete. Lake Kournas is on the north side of the west end of the island in the Chania Prefecture (clicking this link will open a Google Maps page showing the lake location). The geologic/paleoclimate portion of EMAP II was organized by Jason Curtis with help from Mike Rosenmeier. EMAP III returned to Lake Kournas the following summer with a pneumatically-driven coring system for better penetration, and more significant coring platform/raft. I (Besonen) joined Jason and Mike to help with this work, and for an analysis and interpretation of the data, which we hope to get written up soon. Here are some pictures from that work, and you can see a larger version of each by clicking on the thumbnail images.

a pic showing the coring platform from EMAP II, which was basically a couple of paddle boats	an aerial view of Lake Kournas (scanned from a postcard)	a view of the lake from the northeast shore	another view from the northeast shore
the more significant coring platform/raft from EMAP III with an A-frame for winching up the cores; Harvey (left) and Jason (right) are visible	inauguration and launching of the EMAP III coring platform/raft; Mike (left), Jason (middle), and Harvey (right) are visible	the entrance to Kournas Cave, a short distance above the lake; several years later, we would return for some continuing work