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Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons™

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2010

Southwest

Articles 1 - 6 of 6

Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Renewable Energy Projects In Southwestern Deserts – Update On Our Involvement, Scott R. Abella Jul 2010

Renewable Energy Projects In Southwestern Deserts – Update On Our Involvement, Scott R. Abella

Public Policy and Leadership Faculty Publications

Like many in the conservation field, we have a good understanding of the urgent need for alternative energy sources, but also of the negative environmental tradeoffs of placing renewable energy developments on vast tracts of public lands in southwestern deserts as currently envisioned. We also understand political and economic reasons, good or bad, for not doing some obvious things that make sense for renewable energy like placing solar arrays on building tops in cities, within multi-use contexts such as crops, and on already impacted land when alternative energy projects (right or wrong) are to be placed on public land.

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Research Poster: Climate Prediction Downscaling Of Temperature And Precipitation In The Great Basin Region, Ramesh Vellore, Benjamin J. Hatchett, Darko Koracin Feb 2010

Research Poster: Climate Prediction Downscaling Of Temperature And Precipitation In The Great Basin Region, Ramesh Vellore, Benjamin J. Hatchett, Darko Koracin

2010 Annual Nevada NSF EPSCoR Climate Change Conference

Research poster

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Zebulon Pike: Great American Explorer Or Climate Spy?, Merlin P. Lawson, Randall Cerveny, Cary Mock Jan 2010

Zebulon Pike: Great American Explorer Or Climate Spy?, Merlin P. Lawson, Randall Cerveny, Cary Mock

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Faculty Publications

Zebulon Pike is known in history books as one of America’s heroes—a great explorer whose adventures in the American West rivaled the Lewis and Clark Expedition and who became the namesake for Colorado’s Pike’s Peak. But what if the history books got it wrong, and Pike was actually not the hero everyone thinks he is? What if he was actually a spy carrying out a secret mission, or a scoundrel interested in overthrowing the American government and helping to carve a new empire out of the North American Southwest? Evidence from Pike’s famed expedition in 1806-1807 points to the possibility …

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Native Species Interactions With Red Brome: Suggestions For Burn-Area Revegetation, Scott R. Abella Jan 2010

Native Species Interactions With Red Brome: Suggestions For Burn-Area Revegetation, Scott R. Abella

Public Policy and Leadership Faculty Publications

In deserts, native perennial plants often actually facilitate the establishment of exotic annual grasses. One of our focal areas of research is to identify native species for use in revegetation projects that reduce the establishment of exotic annual grasses, or at least do not strongly facilitate exotic species establishment. An initial research effort involving a competition experiment of red brome with native species and a correlational field study of brome distribution among native perennial plants is in press with the journal Invasive Plant Science and Management.

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Preliminary Archaeological Investigations At The Sierra Diablo Cave Site: Paleoindian And Archaic Occupations In Hudspeth County, Texas, Jose Javier Vasquez Jan 2010

Preliminary Archaeological Investigations At The Sierra Diablo Cave Site: Paleoindian And Archaic Occupations In Hudspeth County, Texas, Jose Javier Vasquez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

It is generally rare to find archaeological sites in the Southwest that retain the type of contextual integrity that the Sierra Diablo Cave exhibits. Often times, cave sites such as the one currently studied offer excellent preservation of cultural materials due to the general lack of moisture and isolation from wind and water erosion. The research aimed to determine when the site was occupied as well as the types of activities that were occurring during those occupations. It exhibits an extensive stratigraphic sequence that contains a well pronounced Late Archaic Period assemblage (Strata A and B) and a Late Pleistocene/Early …

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Trying To Beat The Brome: Understanding Establishment Thresholds And Choosing Competitive Native Species At Parashant National Monument, Scott R. Abella, E. Cayenne Engel Jan 2010

Trying To Beat The Brome: Understanding Establishment Thresholds And Choosing Competitive Native Species At Parashant National Monument, Scott R. Abella, E. Cayenne Engel

Public Policy and Leadership Faculty Publications

Desert fires fueled by exotic grasses like the omnipresent red brome (Bromus rubens) can be intense and cause widespread mortality of native vegetation. Native desert scrub communities such as those dominated by blackbrush (Coleogyne ramosissima) do not readily reestablish after fire (Abella 2009) and may even become more abundant in the post-burn landscape initiating a fire cycle that occurs at a greater frequency than the recovery time of the long-lived desert perennial community.

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