A Madrone Forest and other Orcas Island Observations

I did some more tree ring counting notes-on-tree-rings-and-old-forests and again on Orcas Island. This rather modest diameter Douglas fir trunk on the southwest side of Mount Constitution had approximately 100 rings.  

The small diameter but old age does cause me to wonder about the age of stands of large Douglas firs that are scattered about the island.

Old growth Douglas fir

The more interesting aspect of my ventures was finding myself in a forest stand where the predominant tree was Arbutus menziesii.   



Mount Constitution is not a dry spot. While it shares the alignment of other dry areas in the Olympic Mountains rain shadow, it is a bit too down wind and subject to weather events approaching from elsewhere. Its sharp rise above sea level also enhances rainfall locally. However, soils are very thin with shallow bedrock and hence water retention is limited creating a bit of a dry like habitat despite the 40+ inches of rain on parts of the peak. Being on a southwest facing slope added to the dryness. Good habitat for the madrone.

But this forest stand of  Arbutus menziesii also benefitted from anthropogenic forces.

Douglas fir stump

I suspect that the madrones were present prior to logging, but post logging allowed the madrones to flourish over a larger area.

The appeal of this tree is sometimes easy to see. Or perhaps the appeal is simply that its bark habit is so contrary to most trees.

The tree was well established with lots of seedlings.

Arbutus menziesii and lodge pole pine seedling

Of course my purpose was geology so I had to check out the slopes and the bedrock. This is an area of Orcas where the geologic formations are a bit chaotic as units are shuffled in a series of thrust faults. In this case the bedrock was mostly Turtleback Complex with a bit of East Sound Group. Alas, despite the large number of outcrops the exact contact was obscured.

Homefield Advantage: Negative Gravity Wave

This time of year there is a routine of measuring anthropogenic seismic events in Seattle. Another home field advantage appears to be episodic negative gravity waves.
 

Anderson Glacier is Gone

Mauri Pelto notes that Anderson Glacier in the Olympic Mountains has melted away anderson-glacier-olympic-mountains-washington-disappears/.

 

Olympic National Park has an interactive glacier page showing various glaciers in the park over time http://www.nps.gov/olym/naturescience/interactive-glacier-map.htm. The disappearance of the Anderson Glacier has been rather dramatic. The 1960 to 2010 comparison shows a sharp contrast between Anderson Glacier and the nearby Linsley's Glacier. Particularly striking is the Linsley's Glacier as well as nearby snow fields are essentially identical in the 1960 and 2010 images.

The 1936 image of Anderson Glacier shows that Anderson Glacier was not a small glacier.

A note on the 1936 photograph. Ashel Curtis was Edward Curtis' brother and his work in the mountains and in Seattle has and continues to be of importance for understanding the changes to Washington State.

Anderson Mountain had three glaciers. The other two glaciers are still in tact. The Eel Glacier is oriented to the north and its accumulation area is higher than the former Anderson Glacier. The Linsley Glacier is oriented to the south but also has a higher elevation accumulation area than the former Anderson Glacier. The few hundred feet has made a considerable difference as the climate warmed.

2014 Was #1

A bit of a lag as folks crunch and verify numbers, but Japan's Meteorological Agency has 2014 as the warmest. I was never very impressed with the "pause" arguments. Getting worked up about steep increases or declines after large peaks looses site of the long term trend line. We do not need drama to plot out a steady trend line and one year ought not to make much difference.

But people do like extremes and 2014 looks like it is going down as Number 1. From a public dialog perhaps it will put to rest the spin that it has been cooling since 1998. I do suspect there will be new fascinating creative spin on what 2014's record means from deniers. And the anti alarmists will get upset with those that will blame every weather event on the new global year record. Regardless, the trend of warming is continuing towards more consequences that await.

And do not forget that much of the global heat budget goes into the oceans (greater than 90% http://www.climatechange2013.org/images/report/WG1AR5_Chapter03_FINAL.pdf). Good thing Earth has all that water or we would be getting toasty fast. Of coarse a fair bit of CO2 goes into the oceans as well - and yes, calling it acidification is OK; although that might not fully capture carbonate content consequences ocean-co2-yes-it-is-alarming.

Technical Upgrades and the Old Days

I am going through some technical upgrades at work. The march of software upgrades and new systems always catches up with me if enough time goes by and it was time to change my ways.   

 

A friend recently had an old electronic tool die. I remember once lusting after various calculators and it brought back memories of various points in time and how things were done.  

 

My first calculator was identical to the one below. It was heavily used for many years but eventually I abandoned it due to a technical advances which are present in the upper calculator. The back breaker was the shift to a lower energy display. The old one needed frequent battery replacement and eventually the lower costs of calculators made replacement a cheaper option than the frequent purchase of batteries.

 

How to get Geology of the San Juan Islands by Ned Brown

I previously posted on Ned Brown's Geology of the San Juan Islands geology-of-san-juan-islands. While the book is locally available in Bellingham and in the San Juan Islands, it is now available to more distant readers can get the book via Village Books by ordering :http://www.villagebooks.com/book/9780989289139.

Anyone interested in accretion tectonics or global plate movements over 100s of millions of years should have a copy of this book.  

Arbutus menziesii 223 years after Menzies

Archibald Menzies was the ship naturalist on the Vancouver Expedition aboard the ship Discovery.  

After the ship anchored at the north end of what was later named Port Discovery in May 1792, Menzies was part of the crew that rowed to the south, upper end of the bay. There he landed and made numerous observations and notes, including describing trees:

 

"Besides a variety of Pines we here saw the Sycamore Maple (big leaf maple) - American Aldar (red alder) - a species of Crab & the Oriental Strawberry Tree (Pacific madrone), this last grows to a small Tree & was at this time (May) a peculiar ornament to the Forest by its large clusters of white flowers & ever green leaves, but its peculiar smooth bark of reddish brown colour will at all times attract Notice of the most superficial observer."

 

Menzies was already familiar with the tree as the "strawberry tree". Juan Crespi described the tree in his diaries during the first Spanish land exploration of what is now California in 1769. Crespi is credited with the term madrone as he called the tree a madrona and noted its similarity to the strawberry tree of his childhood in Spain. (Crespi later was aboard a Spanish Ship that sailed and explored the west coast of North America including Vancouver Island and observed and described the glacier clad slopes of Mount Olympus on the Olympic Peninsula.)

 

Menzies recognized the tree as an Arbutus and later the tree was named after him with its official name Arbutus menziesii.

Having recently been reading Menzies' journals it was fun to see Arbutus menziesii clinging to the bluff edges above the shores of Discovery Bay where Menzies first described it.

Arbutus menziesii on bluff edge

Arbutus menziesii on bluff edge

 

This is not a madrone, but it was my "tree of the day"

 A red alder clinging to scarp edge of landslide scarp

 

Port Discovery's location on the northwest rain shadow side of the Olympics provides an ideal habitat for Arbutus. There are a few places in the area where the tree is the dominant species in small patches of forest. The tree does well on the edges of steep slopes where it can get sun and slides have taken out the competing Douglas firs. The red alder shown above likes the some what wetter silt/clays on the bluff slopes.