Blog

Since the TenneSwim ended on September 29th, the “swimming professor” Andreas Fath and his graduate student Juri Jander have been busy analyzing their numerous water quality samples. The TenneSwim team is particularly interested in how much plastic is transported by the river. The challenge in answering this question lies in the fact that rivers break down large plastic items (such as empty water bottles) into smaller particles, so-called microplastics. “PerkinElmer’s transportable IR Spectrometer Spectrum Two Read more…

Today is the day. August 29th, 2017 is the day that Andreas Fath finishes his swim on the Tennessee River. After 34 days, the aquatic journey is over after many stops along the coast of the river. Today he comes ashore in Paducah, Kentucky to complete his trip and meet with members of the local government and press in the River Discovery Center (RDC). Today’s post will consist of a brief history of the town Read more…

In 2014, Andreas performed his record breaking swim of one of the most famous rivers in the world, the Rhine River in Europe. Currently, he is less than 2 days away from completing his swim of the Tennessee River, one of the longer rivers in the United States at around 652 miles. In the same neighborhood of the Tennessee River, there is another river that does not have the same amount of fame (or length) Read more…

Andreas is knocking on the doorstep of Kentucky Dam at this very moment. The cause for this dam has been mentioned in a prior post but not given the detail and respect it deserves. That is why today, the historic 1937 flood will be the topic of today’s post. An event that transformed the Four Rivers Region forever.         It was late January of 1937 and the Ohio River Valley had seen Read more…

During Andreas’ swim north through Kentucky Lake, there is a large mass of land to his starboard side. Should you cross that, you will find another lake called Lake Barkley. This area was formerly known as the “Land between the Rivers” (Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers to be exact) until Kentucky and Barkley Dams were constructed. Thanks to these projects and their subsequent creation of 2 lakes, this beautiful land is now known as the “Land Read more…

Currently, Andreas is continuing his swim on the Tennessee River and quickly approaching the Tennessee-Kentucky state line. He is entering Kentucky Lake, the 5th largest freshwater man made lake in the United States (and at one point the largest), covering more than 160,000 acres. It also backs up the Tennessee River for 184 miles. The lake was created by the Tennessee Valley Authority when it built Kentucky Dam to improve river navigation and as a Read more…

Tennessee State Parks is excited to welcome Andreas and team to Paris Landing State Park! On the west side of the river, at river mile 66, is Paris Landing State Park. The riverboat landing was important to the people of the town of Paris and Henry County. The park was developed by TVA in the 1940s and is one our oldest and most popular parks, especially for water sports. The body of water upstream of Read more…

In 1864, the Union Army, headquartered in Nashville, needed an alternate supply route. Boats coming up the Cumberland River were frequently attacked and often lost. So a depot for riverboats was built on the Tennessee River and named for military governor Andrew Johnson. In November, Nathan Bedford Forrest attacked the depot from across the river under Pilot’s Knob. In the battle, the depot was lost and gunboats were sunk in the river. The remains are Read more…

The Tennessee River watershed is home to an amazing diversity of life. The Duck River is a major tributary of the Tennessee River in the western valley and is said to be one of the most biologically diverse streams in North America. Mussels are a very important group of organisms in this system. The stationary Mussel filters the steam water for microscopic food. Because of their abundance, a large part of the river water can Read more…

Today, of course, the big news is the total solar eclipse that begins around noon in the Central time zone. Andreas’s plan is to keep swimming during the eclipse, while the crew will use eclipse shades to view the spectacular phenomenon. Meanwhile Andreas will keep pushing northward. Go to the team Facebook page later today to view the latest photos from Andreas’s eclipse experience. I wanted to take a moment to talk about a conservation project Read more…

The central part of the state of Tennessee could be compared to a giant donut. The Central Basin is the “hole” in the center and the donut around this basin is called the Highland Rim. The northern parts of the rim are mostly in Kentucky and the southern parts are mostly in Alabama. In Tennessee, we have the Western Highland Rim and the Eastern Highland Rim geologic provinces. The Great Western Valley of the Tennessee Read more…

There are several small tributaries to the Tennessee River named Coon Creek. One located near Savannah in western Tennessee, however, has eroded down into bedrock to reveal a treasure box of fossils from an ancient sea. The exposed rock is called the Coon Creek Formation and is Cretaceous in age, having been deposited in a shallow sea some 70 million years ago. At this time sea level was much higher than at present, with ocean Read more…

The Tennessee River is the foundation of the economy in many communities along its banks. In addition to the cities of Knoxville and Chattanooga, many smaller towns owe their existence to the river. Savannah is a community which started at a crossing of the big river that has been used for hundreds of years. A monumental bridge today replaces the ferries of yesterday.   The Native Americans used the crossing at Savannah for centuries before Read more…

The Muscle Shoals were the last rocky obstacles Andreas had to cross during his Tennessee River swim. The dangerous rapids and shallow water were created by the efforts of the river to cut through a tough, resistant layer of rock called the Ft. Payne Chert. In the nineteenth century, the shoals were the usual limits for steamboats moving upstream. Today, the Wilson and Wheeler Dams- and their huge lift locks- tame this barrier. Below the Read more…

Andreas Fath is swimming in a river that contains an incredible variety of aquatic life. There are more fish, freshwater mussels, snails, insects, plants and other forms of life in the Tennessee River system than there are anywhere else in North America. Varieties of fish species in particular abound. More than 270 different kinds of fish inhabit the entire Tennessee River watershed, which includes the many streams and rivers that feed into the Tennessee River. Read more…

After a tough day contending with high winds and big waves yesterday, Andreas has passed Wheeler Dam and today has been swimming toward Wilson Dam… and the famed music center known as Muscle Shoals. Muscle Shoals is thought to have originally been named for its shoals and shallow areas filled with freshwater mussels along the Tennessee River that flows past the town. Over time, the name came to be spelled “muscle” rather than “mussel.” Muscle Shoals is part Read more…

Today Andreas Fath is pushing hard across the glassy stillness of Wheeler Lake, west of Decatur, Alabama, in his quest to swim the Tennessee River. Swimming across such man-made lakes is always a challenge for Andreas because there is little to no current on them. Wheeler Lake is the 67,000-acre reservoir created by Wheeler Dam. Wheeler Dam is one of nine dams on the Tennessee River, all built and managed by the Tennessee Valley Authority. Read more…

Andreas Fath is attempting an incredible athletic feat in swimming the entire 652-mile Tennessee River. Months ago, in the run-up to the start of the “TenneSwim,” many of us supporting Andreas’s swim for science began to ask: Has anyone else ever done it? We looked into it, and as best we can determine, only one other person has managed to swim the entire Tennessee River. Mimi Hughes, a teacher from Taft, Tennessee, swam the length Read more…

On Friday afternoon, Andreas and the team passed the majestic Painted Bluff along the northern bank of the Tennessee River just southeast of Huntsville. More than 80 ancient Native American paintings and rock carvings decorate its walls. It’s been called one of the most important sites for ancient Native American art in the southeastern U.S. The primitive artworks decorating the walls at Painted Bluff depict human figures, snakes, birds and other animals. Archaeologists have studied Read more…

Today, Andreas Fath plans to go through the locks at Guntersville Dam by early afternoon. This will be the first of four dams he will be swimming through in Alabama. Guntersville Dam was built in 1935. The nearby town, Guntersville, was named after John Gunter. John Gunter was a Scottish settler, and he founded the town of Guntersville shortly after the American Revolution. Guntersville Dam is one of three hydroelectric dams in northern Alabama. Tennessee Read more…

Andreas Fath continues to conquer the Tennessee River. Today, he approaches Guntersville Lake in Alabama.  Martin Knoll, TenneSwim’s U.S. Project Director, summarizes the team’s journey so far, “The scenery all along the way has been just gorgeous. It’s like a Huck Finn dream.” Martin goes on to describe some of the spectacular wildlife the team has encountered. “Ospreys! We don’t look at them anymore. I’m joking. We’ve just seen so many of them along the Read more…

Yesterday Andreas Fath had a tremendous day of swimming the Tennessee River. He did 24 miles, far surpassing his daily goal of 20 miles. As of the end of yesterday, he has 400 miles to go to reach the river’s end in Paducah, Kentucky, where it meets the Ohio River. He is projected to reach his goal by the end of this month. Another key milestone that he achieved yesterday was crossing into Alabama from Read more…

On a human scale, something that measures 5 millimeters (about a fifth of an inch) probably doesn’t register as large enough to be worthy of much attention. And given that perception, it can be hard to imagine that something so small could make much of an impact on a person, much less a planet. Yet conservationists and scientists, like Dr. Andreas Fath, are growing increasingly concerned by the mounting ecological pandemic posed by microplastics. Collectively, Read more…

There are certain animals you expect to find in a body of freshwater like the Tennessee River: Catfish, turtles, ducks, darters, maybe a snake or two. What you don’t expect? Jellyfish. Yet, as unlikely as it may seem, as Dr. Andreas Fath continues his point-to-point navigation of all 652 miles of the Tennessee River, he may encounter some unexpected wildlife, including — shockingly (though thankfully not sting-ingly) — freshwater jellyfish. Small and bell-shaped, the Freshwater Read more…

The Tenneswim crew has settled into a distinct routine. Each morning after a camp breakfast our 18 foot pontoon boat is loaded and anywhere from three to six people, plus Andreas, head out  to the point where Andreas stopped swimming on the previous day. On the ride out, but before putting on his wet suit, Andreas is doctored up for the swim ahead. This means covering raw skin abraded from the constant rubbing of the Read more…

When Dr. Andreas Fath started the Rheines Wasser project to swim and analyze the water quality along the entirety of Germany’s Rhine River in 2014, he began in Switzerland’s frigid Lake Toma. At the time, he was surrounded by the geographic grandeur of the Alps and dipping into water that was a breathtaking 44 degrees. For TenneSwim, the American analogue to Rheines Wasser, Dr. Fath has encountered far different conditions. In the Tennessee River, the Read more…

For scientists, biodiversity is a critical measurement of an ecosystem’s ecological richness. The higher the biodiversity, the more plant and animal species that can be found in a particular location. According to a 2016 study created through a partnership between the Tennessee Aquarium Conservation Institute (TNACI) and the University of Georgia River Basin Center (RBC), the Southeast is a hotbed of aquatic biodiversity, a region with a variety of freshwater wildlife that is practically unparalleled Read more…

Today we drifted by the confluence of the Hiwassee River, one of the largest tributaries feeding the Tennessee. This river has its origins to the east, high in the mountains of the Blue Ridge. As it spills out of the mountains it is joined by the equally large Ocoee River, but maintains the name Hiwassee. Both the Ocoee and Hiwassee have cut deep, scenic gorges into the ancient rocks of the Blue Ridge. This is Read more…

Having crossed more than 120 miles and with a stopping point near Dayton, Tenn., in his sights, Dr. Andreas Fath is making incredibly swift progress in TenneSwim, his epic project to swim and analyze the entire Tennessee River. In addition to the project’s world record potential and its unprecedented scientific ambitions, TenneSwim is both historic and historical, thanks to the millennia of significance the Tennessee River has held to indigenous occupants of the Southeast. Europeans Read more…

The mountains of eastern Tennessee form the rooftop of the Tennessee River watershed. This is the highest ground upon which rainwater falls, ultimately making its way down to the river. Today the TenneSwim team leaves our staging area in the town of Sewanee, which lies on that part of the rooftop referred to as the Cumberland Plateau. Water falling here has only one desire – to move downhill. And the journey off the rooftop is a Read more…

“Since outdoor-pools opened in mid-May, I’ve swum 125 miles” explains Andreas Fath when asked about his training workload. “That’s about the same distance I swam to prepare for swimming the Rhine in 2014.” Andreas plans to train every day before he leaves for the United States later this month. “But no intense training sessions. I will swim more than enough over the course of the next few days and weeks”, Fath adds laughingly. Fath’s preparation Read more…

Whereas water on this planet may seem abundant, most is not immediately accessible for human use: In 1993, hydrologist Igor Shiklomanov famously estimated that of all water on earth – representing a volume of circa 1.386 billion km3 – merely 2.5% is freshwater. Let’s take that to a more comprehensible level: If a standard-size water bottle could hold all water in the hydrosphere, all you were able to drink would be a fifth of the Read more…