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Full-Text Articles in Geography

Separating The Effects Of Wildfires From Climate In Growth Of Ponderosa Pine (Pinus Ponderosa Douglas Ex. C. Lawson), Central Idaho, U.S.A., Jessica Dominique Slayton Dec 2010

Separating The Effects Of Wildfires From Climate In Growth Of Ponderosa Pine (Pinus Ponderosa Douglas Ex. C. Lawson), Central Idaho, U.S.A., Jessica Dominique Slayton

Masters Theses

Scientists use climate proxies, such as tree rings, to extend the climate record back in time, adding to the growing body of knowledge of past climate change. Tree rings provide a high-resolution proxy of climate. Many of the reconstructed climate records for the western U.S. use ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa Douglas ex. C. Lawson), a fire-adapted species that grows in areas prone to frequent fires. Such a disturbance as fire can introduce noise to climate reconstructions by causing growth releases or suppression following a fire event. My objective was to determine whether fire damage causes a quantifiable change in growth …


Influences Of Climate And Anthropogenic Disturbances On Wildfire Regimes Of The Zuni Mountains, New Mexico, U.S.A., Monica Tyson Rother Aug 2010

Influences Of Climate And Anthropogenic Disturbances On Wildfire Regimes Of The Zuni Mountains, New Mexico, U.S.A., Monica Tyson Rother

Masters Theses

This research examined the fire history of ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa Douglas ex P. Lawson & C. Lawson) forests in northwestern New Mexico. The study area included three sites in the Zuni Mountains of Cibola National Forest and one site along the boundary of El Malpais National Monument. I crossdated over 800 fire scars on 75 samples to reconstruct spatial and temporal characteristics of historic wildfire regimes. The Weibull Median Interval, Weibull Modal Interval, and Mean Fire Interval ranged from five to eight years across all sites and percent-scarred classes (all fires, 10% scarred, and 25% scarred) and indicated that …


A Vegetation History From Emerald Pond, Great Abaco Island, The Bahamas, Based On Pollen Analysis, Ian Arthur Slayton Aug 2010

A Vegetation History From Emerald Pond, Great Abaco Island, The Bahamas, Based On Pollen Analysis, Ian Arthur Slayton

Masters Theses

Emerald Pond (26° 32' 12" N, 77° 06' 32" W) is a vertical-walled solution hole in the pine rocklands of Great Abaco Island, The Bahamas. In 2006, Sally Horn, Ken Orvis, and students recovered an 8.7 m-long sediment core from the center of the pond using a Colinvaux-Vohnout locking piston corer. AMS radiocarbon dates on macrofossils are in stratigraphic order and indicate that the sequence extends to ca. 8400 cal yr BP. Basal deposits consist of aeolian sands topped by a soil and then pond sediment, suggesting that the site began as a sheltered, dry hole during a Late Pleistocene …


Fire History From Dendrochronological Analyses At Two Sites Near Cades Cove, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, U.S.A., Ian C. Feathers May 2010

Fire History From Dendrochronological Analyses At Two Sites Near Cades Cove, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, U.S.A., Ian C. Feathers

Masters Theses

Fire, logging, livestock grazing, and insect outbreaks are disturbances that have significantly influenced both the historic and present fire regimes. The composition and structure of vegetation communities within Great Smoky Mountains National Park (GSMNP) have likely changed in response to these disturbances. Two study sites (CRX, the near site, and CRT, the far site) were chosen along the Cooper Road Trail based on topographic separation, presence of mixed oak-pine communities, presence of fire-scarred yellow pine trees, and GSMNP land acquisition records. To quantify and evaluate fire regimes, individual fire histories were developed for each site from fire-scarred yellow pine trees, …