Forests
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Ten miles off the coast of Alabama, an underground cypress forest is being studied by scientists to help learn about the climate of 50,000 years ago, when the forest was alive, according to a recent story by National Public Radio. The ice-age forest may be able to provide new clues about how forests grew in…
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The recent rains in the Southeast have put a dent in the wildfire probabilities for this spring, according to an article by The Weather Channel, based on information from the National Interagency Fire Center. Potential for wildfires in most of the Southeast is projected to be lower than normal for February and March. After that…
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CompassLive, the blog of the USDA’s Forest Service Southern Research Station, has an interesting post describing how precipitation patterns are changing over time at the Coweeta Hydrologic Lab in western North Carolina. They have records going back to 1934 and were able to look at the patterns in comparison to several weather/climate patterns like El…
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Atlas Obscura has another interesting story this week about a small park near St. Louis filled with four pecan trees that survived the 1993 floods. When the area was rebuilt after the flood, the community protected the 100-year-old trees with a new levee and a park to protect them. You can read more about it…
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The Tampa Bay Times had an interesting column by Jack Payne last week on why it is important to understand why some trees survive hurricanes like Irma and others don’t. If we knew the species that were most resilient or could breed stronger varieties, that might help provide protection against damage to buildings, power lines,…
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If you love to look at maps, you will be interested in this new GIS-based map of forest cover in the US. This is the latest in a string of GIS-based maps of river basins for various continents, and the author Robert Szucs has been featured for these on this blog and other places in the…
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When I was a kid in Michigan, my grandmother’s yard was filled with sassafras trees. So I was very interested in this article from the USDA about ambrosia beetles, which can kill a sassafras tree in just four weeks. Will milder winters cause the trees I remember from Michigan succumb to ambrosia beetles in the…