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Sods
Sods is a term used in the Allegheny Mountains of eastern West Virginia for a mountain top meadow or bog, in an area that is otherwise generally forested. The term is similar (perhaps identical) to that of a " grass bald", a more widespread designation applied throughout the central and southern Appalachian region. The best known example of a sods is Dolly Sods, a federally designated wilderness area in Tucker County, West Virginia and popular destination for recreationalists. Other examples include Nelson Sods ( Pendleton County) and Baker Sods (Randolph County). Ecology West Virginia University botanist Earl L. Core addressed the origin of the "sods" in 1973: How did it happen that these grassy tracts were originally rior to white settlementtreeless, when all the surrounding areas were covered with trees? No one really knows. Although the "sods" and "balds" have been the subject of much speculation, discussion, and research, no generally-accepted explanation has yet been pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dolly Sods
The Dolly Sods Wilderness – originally simply Dolly Sods – is a U.S. Wilderness Area in the Allegheny Mountains of eastern West Virginia, US, and is part of the Monongahela National Forest (MNF) of the U.S. Forest Service (USFS). Dolly Sods is a rocky, high-altitude plateau with sweeping vistas and lifeforms normally found much farther north in Canada. To the north, the distinctive landscape of "the Sods" is characterized by stunted ("flagged") trees, wind-carved boulders, heath barrens, grassy meadows created in the last century by logging and fires, and sphagnum bogs that are much older. To the south, a dense cove forest occupies the branched canyon excavated by the North Fork of Red Creek. The name derives from an 18th-century German homesteading family – the Dahles – and a local term for an open mountaintop meadow – a "sods". Geography Topography Dolly Sods is the highest plateau east of the Mississippi River with altitudes ranging from 2,644 ft. (806 m) ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
North Fork Mountain
North Fork Mountain is a quartzite-capped mountain ridge in the Ridge and Valley physiographic province of the Allegheny Mountains (or "High Alleghenies" or "Potomac Highlands") of eastern West Virginia. Kile Knob, at 4,588 feet (1,398 m), is the mountain's highest point, and Panther Knob and Pike Knob are nearly as high. North Fork Mountain is the driest high mountain in the Appalachians, and has vegetation and flora different from nearby, wetter high mountain areas immediately to the west such as Spruce Knob and Dolly Sods, with pines (''Pinus'') abundant on the mountain's ridgecrest, in contrast with the spruces (''Picea'') so characteristic of these comparably high summits across the North Fork Valley. Structurally, North Fork Mountain is an anticline mountain, a major part of the Wills Mountain Anticline system. The mountain's strata (rock layers) are nearly flat, but the Tuscarora quartzite that forms the mountain's caprock is bent downwards (and now mostly eroded aw ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Monongahela National Forest
The Monongahela National Forest is a national forest located in the Allegheny Mountains of eastern West Virginia, USA. It protects over of federally managed land within a proclamation boundary that includes much of the Potomac Highlands Region and portions of 10 counties. The Monongahela National Forest includes some major landform features such as the Allegheny Front and the western portion of the Ridge-and-valley Appalachians. Within the forest boundaries lie some of the highest mountain peaks in the state, including the highest, Spruce Knob (4,863 ft). Spruce Knob is also the highest point in the Allegheny Mountains. Approximately 75 tree species are found in the forest. Almost all of the trees are a second growth forest, grown back after the land was heavily cutover around the start of the 20th century. Species for which the forest is important include red spruce (''Picea rubens''), balsam fir (''Abies balsamea''), and mountain ash (''Sorbus americana''). The Monong ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Appalachian Bogs
Appalachian bogs are boreal or hemiboreal ecosystems, which occur in many places in the Appalachian Mountains, particularly the Allegheny and Blue Ridge subranges. Though popularly called bogs, many of them are technically fens. Natural history After the Pleistocene ice ages, species and ecosystems that had shifted southward often survived in local refugia. As a result, cold-adapted ecosystems, such as bogs, remain as far south as East Tennessee and Western North Carolina. Development of land has greatly reduced both the number and acreage of the bogs in North Carolina. Bog ecosystems evolved in humid cold temperate regions and are generally ombrotrophic which means the system is dependent on precipitation for moisture and nutrient inputs. Shady Valley bogs Situated between Holston Mountain and the Iron Mountains, the community of Shady Valley, Tennessee, once contained an estimated 10,000 acres (40 km²) of cranberry bogs. In recent years, The Nature Conservancy has i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
North Fork Mountain - Nelson Sods
North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating direction or geography. Etymology The word ''north'' is related to the Old High German ''nord'', both descending from the Proto-Indo-European unit *''ner-'', meaning "left; below" as north is to left when facing the rising sun. Similarly, the other cardinal directions are also related to the sun's position. The Latin word ''borealis'' comes from the Greek '' boreas'' "north wind, north", which, according to Ovid, was personified as the wind-god Boreas, the father of Calais and Zetes. ''Septentrionalis'' is from ''septentriones'', "the seven plow oxen", a name of ''Ursa Major''. The Greek ἀρκτικός (''arktikós'') is named for the same constellation, and is the source of the English word ''Arctic''. Other languages have other derivations. For example, in Lezgian, ''kefer'' can mean b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Danthonia Compressa
''Danthonia compressa'' is a species of grass known by the common names mountain oatgrass, flattened oatgrass, and slender oatgrass. Distribution This bunchgrass is native to eastern North America, where it can be found in eastern Canada and the Eastern United States. In the southern part of its range it is restricted to the high elevations of the Appalachian Mountains.Carey, Jennifer H. 1994''Danthonia compressa''.In: Fire Effects Information System, nline U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Fire Sciences Laboratory. Description ''Danthonia compressa'' is a perennial bunchgrass with thin, compressed stems reaching up to about 80 centimeters in length, sometimes lying decumbent. Most of the leaves are located at the bases of the stems. The inflorescence is a panicle of up to 17 spikelets, with two or three per branch. The spikelet has a short, bent awn. The grass reproduces by seed and by sprouting new stems from buds on the stem base ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ecoregions
An ecoregion (ecological region) or ecozone (ecological zone) is an ecologically and geographically defined area that is smaller than a bioregion, which in turn is smaller than a biogeographic realm. Ecoregions cover relatively large areas of land or water, and contain characteristic, geographically distinct assemblages of natural communities and species. The biodiversity of flora, fauna and ecosystems that characterise an ecoregion tends to be distinct from that of other ecoregions. In theory, biodiversity or conservation ecoregions are relatively large areas of land or water where the probability of encountering different species and communities at any given point remains relatively constant, within an acceptable range of variation (largely undefined at this point). Three caveats are appropriate for all bio-geographic mapping approaches. Firstly, no single bio-geographic framework is optimal for all taxa. Ecoregions reflect the best compromise for as many taxa as possible. Se ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Landforms
A landform is a natural or anthropogenic land feature on the solid surface of the Earth or other planetary body. Landforms together make up a given terrain, and their arrangement in the landscape is known as topography. Landforms include hills, mountains, canyons, and valleys, as well as shoreline features such as bays, peninsulas, and seas, including submerged features such as mid-ocean ridges, volcanoes, and the great ocean basins. Physical characteristics Landforms are categorized by characteristic physical attributes such as elevation, slope, orientation, stratification, rock exposure and soil type. Gross physical features or landforms include intuitive elements such as berms, mounds, hills, ridges, cliffs, valleys, rivers, peninsulas, volcanoes, and numerous other structural and size-scaled (e.g. ponds vs. lakes, hills vs. mountains) elements including various kinds of inland and oceanic waterbodies and sub-surface features. Mountains, hills, plateaux, and plains are the fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bogs Of West Virginia
A bog or bogland is a wetland that accumulates peat as a deposit of dead plant materials often mosses, typically sphagnum moss. It is one of the four main types of wetlands. Other names for bogs include mire, mosses, quagmire, and muskeg; alkaline mires are called fens. A baygall is another type of bog found in the forest of the Gulf Coast states in the United States.Watson, Geraldine Ellis (2000) ''Big Thicket Plant Ecology: An Introduction'', Third Edition (Temple Big Thicket Series #5). University of North Texas Press. Denton, Texas. 152 pp. Texas Parks and Wildlife. Ecological Mapping systems of Texas: West Gulf Coastal Plain Seepage Swamp and Baygall'. Retrieved 7 July 2020 They are often covered in heath or heather shrubs rooted in the sphagnum moss and peat. The gradual accumulation of decayed plant material in a bog functions as a carbon sink. Bogs occur where the water at the ground surface is acidic and low in nutrients. In contrast to fens, they derive most of t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Natural History Of West Virginia
Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans are part of nature, human activity is often understood as a separate category from other natural phenomena. The word ''nature'' is borrowed from the Old French ''nature'' and is derived from the Latin word ''natura'', or "essential qualities, innate disposition", and in ancient times, literally meant "birth". In ancient philosophy, ''natura'' is mostly used as the Latin translation of the Greek word ''physis'' (φύσις), which originally related to the intrinsic characteristics of plants, animals, and other features of the world to develop of their own accord. The concept of nature as a whole, the physical universe, is one of several expansions of the original notion; it began with certain core applications of the word φύσις by pre-Soc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Community Ecology
In ecology, a community is a group or association of populations of two or more different species occupying the same geographical area at the same time, also known as a biocoenosis, biotic community, biological community, ecological community, or life assemblage. The term community has a variety of uses. In its simplest form it refers to groups of organisms in a specific place or time, for example, "the fish community of Lake Ontario before industrialization". Community ecology or synecology is the study of the interactions between species in communities on many spatial and temporal scales, including the distribution, structure, abundance, demography, and interactions between coexisting populations. The primary focus of community ecology is on the interactions between populations as determined by specific genotypic and phenotypic characteristics. Community ecology also takes into account abiotic factors that influence species distributions or interactions (e.g. annual temperat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Earl Lemley Core
Earl Lemley Core (January 20, 1902 – December 8, 1984) was a botanist and botanical educator, researcher, and author as well as a local West Virginia historian. He was founder of the Southern Appalachian Botanical Club and editor of its journal, '' Castanea'', for thirty-five years. He was a teacher and professor at West Virginia University (WVU) from 1928 to 1972. He served for four years on the Morgantown City Council, and served as mayor of Morgantown for two years. The Earl L. Core Arboretum at WVU was named in his honor in 1967. Clarkson, Roy B. and Jesse F. Clovis (1984), “Earl Lemley Core, 1902-1984”, ''Castanea'' 50(1): 1-6. Biography Youth and education Core was born on January 20, 1902, at Core, West Virginia, the son of Harry Michael and Clara Edna (''née'' Lemley) Core. He graduated from Morgantown High School and taught in rural schools from 1920 to 1923. He then attended WVU, earning a Bachelor of Arts in 1926 and a Master of Arts in 1928. He earned his Do ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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