Ah, the wonders of dirt.
I was at Dave Montgomery's lecture on his book "Dirt: the erosion of civilizations" today. Great lecture. This is such a multifaceted topic too. Besides catastrophy or climate change, the only theory that holds any weight on the periodicity of the collapse of human civilizations seems to be the order-of-magnitude increase in soil erosion when subjugated to till agriculture.
An interesting side note that Dave brought up is that the understory of many clear cut forests don't increase the bulk erosion rates of many coastal forest lands, such as those in the Olympic mountains. So as pissed as I can be at Weyerhauser for fucking up the natural beauty in the Olympics, we can't say they're fucking over productivity that bad. Dave said that we're on the 4th generation on many of those stands out there, which further supports his claim that the soils there are relatively stable due to the quick timescale of pioneer species in a region with as much precipitation as the olympics and cascades.
This isn't to say that the clear cuts don't contribute to greater catastrophic effects of hillslope erosion, such as landslides and things like that. I wonder if he considered that in response to my question.
Hopefully I'll be able to take some water and soil samples this spring to measure DOC and DIC in runoff of several drainages, both clearcut and pristine, to give a numerical data set to the question, and better understand the effects of clearcutting on the productivity of the soils the Pacific northwest. Maybe I should look at a graduate program in conservation ecology? I like the ring of "hydrologist" better though.
What a nerd!
Steven's has received over 56" for a storm total over the last week. What a killer dump. My knee is still bumming fairly hard though, so we'll see if I ever get to ski this stuff. Progressive dinner this weekend should be very fun.
212 is the most unreasonable amount of work I've ever grappled with in this department. I really don't give a rat's ass about the cleavage of hornblend, but I guess I'll have to for the next 6 weeks. Hopefully petrology will be a bit more interesting and useful.
Ryan out.
An interesting side note that Dave brought up is that the understory of many clear cut forests don't increase the bulk erosion rates of many coastal forest lands, such as those in the Olympic mountains. So as pissed as I can be at Weyerhauser for fucking up the natural beauty in the Olympics, we can't say they're fucking over productivity that bad. Dave said that we're on the 4th generation on many of those stands out there, which further supports his claim that the soils there are relatively stable due to the quick timescale of pioneer species in a region with as much precipitation as the olympics and cascades.
This isn't to say that the clear cuts don't contribute to greater catastrophic effects of hillslope erosion, such as landslides and things like that. I wonder if he considered that in response to my question.
Hopefully I'll be able to take some water and soil samples this spring to measure DOC and DIC in runoff of several drainages, both clearcut and pristine, to give a numerical data set to the question, and better understand the effects of clearcutting on the productivity of the soils the Pacific northwest. Maybe I should look at a graduate program in conservation ecology? I like the ring of "hydrologist" better though.
What a nerd!
Steven's has received over 56" for a storm total over the last week. What a killer dump. My knee is still bumming fairly hard though, so we'll see if I ever get to ski this stuff. Progressive dinner this weekend should be very fun.
212 is the most unreasonable amount of work I've ever grappled with in this department. I really don't give a rat's ass about the cleavage of hornblend, but I guess I'll have to for the next 6 weeks. Hopefully petrology will be a bit more interesting and useful.
Ryan out.