1.
Northern Basin and Range ecoregion
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The Northern Basin and Range ecoregion is a Level III ecoregion designated by the United States Environmental Protection Agency in the U. S. states of Oregon, Idaho, Nevada, Utah, and California. It contains dissected lava plains, rolling hills, alluvial fans, valleys, although arid, the ecoregion is higher and cooler than the Snake River Plain to the north and has more available moisture and a cooler climate than the Central Basin and Range to the south. Its southern boundary is determined by the highest shoreline of Pleistocene Lake Bonneville, the western part of the region is internally drained, its eastern stream network drains to the Snake River system. The valleys support sagebrush steppe or saltbush vegetation, mollisol soils are common, in contrast to the aridisols of the Central Basin. Juniper-dominated woodland occurs on rugged, stony uplands, the mountain ranges are covered in mountain sagebrush, Idaho fescue, Douglas-fir, subalpine forests, or aspen. Today, most of the region is used for livestock grazing, dryland and irrigated cropland are found in some areas, but in general the soils are less suitable for agriculture than those in the Columbia Plateau and the Snake River Plain ecoregions. Most public lands in the region are managed by the Bureau of Land Management, the Northern Basin and Range ecoregion has been subdivided into fourteen Level IV ecoregions, as described below. Level IV mapping is not yet complete in California, and the information below includes only the sections in Oregon, Idaho, Nevada, and Utah. The Dissected High Lava Plateau ecoregion is a broad to gently rolling basalt plateau cut by deep, sheer-walled canyons, with perennial, Elevation varies from 4,000 to 7,300 feet. The region is less wooded, lower, and more arid than neighboring subregions in the Northern Basin and it differs from sagebrush-dominated regions in the Central Basin and Range in having higher precipitation and colder winters. Juniper-pinyon woodlands grow on rocky and gravelly uplands, understory species are denser and biological soil crusts tend to be more extensive and in better condition than at similar elevations in the Central Basin and Range. Cheatgrass has replaced depleted bunchgrasses in overgrazed areas and it is primarily used for rangeland and wildlife habitat. Contiguous areas in California have not been mapped yet, the Semiarid Hills and Low Mountains ecoregion is higher and more rugged than the sagebrush plains and basins of neighboring regions. It is composed of unglaciated mountain slopes, hills, and alluvial fans at an elevation of 4,600 to 9,000 feet, scattered juniper woodlands grow on shallow and rocky soils. These hills represent the limit for both pinyon and Utah juniper, western juniper replaces them to the west and north. Groves of aspen grow on alluvial fans and along stream networks, with lodgepole pine. Geyer willow and Booth willow are also present in riparian areas, the region includes streams that have been designated for protection as critical or high priority habitat for Yellowstone cutthroat trout and other fish. Water quality has been lightly to moderately degraded by human activities, such as gold mining and livestock grazing
2.
Great Basin montane forests
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The Great Basin montane forests is an ecoregion of the Temperate coniferous forests biome, as designated by the World Wildlife Fund. The Great Basin montane forests ecoregion is located in the Great Basin region of Nevada, eastern California, the montane forests are often found on Madrean Sky Islands at elevations above the Great Basin Desert or xeric shrublands. The forests are within the Central or Northern Basin and Range ecoregions defined by the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency, mountain mahogany often dominates drier, warmer south-facing slopes. Pure stands of aspen are common in this community. The bristlecone pine is an important species that is indicative of the Great Basin montane forest, bristlecones live a long time, some for thousands of years. The harsh areas they occupy are often devoid of plant life, so there is little competition. The trees grow slowly, producing very dense, disease-resistant wood. These factors contribute to the long life. Great Basin shrub steppe — Deserts and xeric shrublands biome ecoregion Northern Basin and Range ecoregion — Level III ecoregion Ecology portal
3.
Nevada
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Nevada is a state in the Western, Mountain West, and Southwestern regions of the United States of America. Nevada is the 7th most extensive, the 34th most populous, nearly three-quarters of Nevadas people live in Clark County, which contains the Las Vegas–Paradise metropolitan area where three of the states four largest incorporated cities are located. Nevada is officially known as the Silver State because of the importance of silver to its history and economy. It is also known as the Battle Born State, because it achieved statehood during the Civil War, as the Sage-brush State, for the plant of the same name. Nevada borders Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, Nevada is largely desert and semi-arid, much of it located within the Great Basin. Areas south of the Great Basin are located within the Mojave Desert, while Lake Tahoe, about 86% of the states land is managed by various jurisdictions of the U. S. federal government, both civilian and military. Before European contact, Native Americans of the Paiute, Shoshone, the first Europeans to explore the region were Spanish. They called the region Nevada because of the snow covered the mountains in winter. The area formed part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain, the United States annexed the area in 1848 after its victory in the Mexican–American War, and it was incorporated as part of Utah Territory in 1850. The discovery of silver at the Comstock Lode in 1859 led to a boom that became an impetus to the creation of Nevada Territory out of western Utah Territory in 1861. Nevada became the 36th state on October 31,1864, as the second of two added to the Union during the Civil War. Nevada has a reputation for its libertarian laws, in 1940, with a population of just over 110,000 people, Nevada was by far the least-populated state, with less than half the population of the next least-populated state. However, legalized gambling and lenient marriage and divorce laws transformed Nevada into a major tourist destination in the 20th century, Nevada is the only U. S. state where prostitution is legal, though it is illegal in Clark County, Washoe County and Carson City. The tourism industry remains Nevadas largest employer, with mining continuing as a sector of the economy. The name Nevada comes from the Spanish nevada, meaning snow-covered, most Nevadans pronounce the second syllable of their state name using the vowel of trap. Many from outside the Western United States pronounce it with the vowel of father, although the latter pronunciation is closer to the Spanish pronunciation, it is not the pronunciation preferred by most Nevadans. State Assemblyman Harry Mortenson proposed a bill to recognize the alternate pronunciation of Nevada, though the bill was not supported by most legislators, the Nevadan pronunciation is the de facto official one, since it is the one used by the state legislature. Nevada is almost entirely within the Basin and Range Province, and is broken up by many mountain ranges
4.
United States Geological Survey
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The United States Geological Survey is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its resources. The organization has four science disciplines, concerning biology, geography, geology. The USGS is a research organization with no regulatory responsibility. The USGS is a bureau of the United States Department of the Interior, the USGS employs approximately 8,670 people and is headquartered in Reston, Virginia. The USGS also has major offices near Lakewood, Colorado, at the Denver Federal Center, the current motto of the USGS, in use since August 1997, is science for a changing world. The agencys previous slogan, adopted on the occasion of its anniversary, was Earth Science in the Public Service. Prompted by a report from the National Academy of Sciences, the USGS was created, by a last-minute amendment and it was charged with the classification of the public lands, and examination of the geological structure, mineral resources, and products of the national domain. This task was driven by the need to inventory the vast lands added to the United States by the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, the legislation also provided that the Hayden, Powell, and Wheeler surveys be discontinued as of June 30,1879. Clarence King, the first director of USGS, assembled the new organization from disparate regional survey agencies, after a short tenure, King was succeeded in the directors chair by John Wesley Powell. Administratively, it is divided into a Headquarters unit and six Regional Units, Other specific programs include, Earthquake Hazards Program monitors earthquake activity worldwide. The National Earthquake Information Center in Golden, Colorado on the campus of the Colorado School of Mines detects the location, the USGS also runs or supports several regional monitoring networks in the United States under the umbrella of the Advanced National Seismic System. The USGS informs authorities, emergency responders, the media, and it also maintains long-term archives of earthquake data for scientific and engineering research. It also conducts and supports research on long-term seismic hazards, USGS has released the UCERF California earthquake forecast. The USGS National Geomagnetism Program monitors the magnetic field at magnetic observatories and distributes magnetometer data in real time, the USGS operates the streamgaging network for the United States, with over 7400 streamgages. Real-time streamflow data are available online, since 1962, the Astrogeology Research Program has been involved in global, lunar, and planetary exploration and mapping. USGS operates a number of related programs, notably the National Streamflow Information Program. USGS Water data is available from their National Water Information System database
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Biome
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A biome /ˈbaɪoʊm/ is a community of plants and animals that have common characteristics for the environment they exist in, and can be found over a range of continents. Spanning continents, biomes are distinct biological communities that have formed in response to a shared physical climate, biome is a broader term than habitat, any biome can comprise a variety of habitats. While a biome can cover large ares, a microbiome is a mix of organisms that coexist in a space as well. For example, the microbiome is the collection of bacteria, viruses. The biotas of the Earth make up the biosphere, the term was suggested in 1916 by Clements, originally as a synonym for biotic community of Möbius. In 1935, Tansley added the climatic and soil aspects to the idea, the International Biological Program projects popularized the concept of biome. However, in contexts, the term biome is used in a different manner. Both includes many biomes in fact and their boundaries must therefore be drawn arbitrarily and their characterization made according to the average conditions that predominate in them. A1978 study on North American grasslands found a positive correlation between evapotranspiration in mm/yr and above-ground net primary production in g/m2/yr. These findings help explain the categories used in Holdridge’s bioclassification scheme, Holdridge uses the four axes to define 30 so-called humidity provinces, which are clearly visible in his diagram. While this scheme largely ignores soil and sun exposure, Holdridge acknowledged that these were important and his scheme can be seen as a simplification of Holdridges, more readily accessible, but missing Holdridges greater specificity. Whittaker based his approach on theoretical assertions and empirical sampling and he was in a unique position to make such a holistic assertion because he had previously compiled a review of biome classifications. Physiognomy, the apparent characteristics, outward features, or appearance of communities or species. Biome, a grouping of terrestrial ecosystems on a continent that are similar in vegetation structure, physiognomy, features of the environment. Formation, a kind of community of plants on a given continent. Biome-type, grouping of convergent biomes or formations of different continents, whittakers distinction between biome and formation can be simplified, formation is used when applied to plant communities only, while biome is used when concerned with both plants and animals. Whittakers convention of biome-type or formation-type is simply a method to categorize similar communities. Whittaker considered four main ecoclines in the terrestrial realm, changes in physiognomic complexity vary with how favorable of an environment exists
6.
North American Desert
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This list of North American deserts identifies areas of the continent which receive less than 10 in annual precipitation. The North American Desert is also the term for a large U. S. Level 1 ecoregion of the North American Cordillera, in the Deserts and xeric shrublands biome. The continents deserts are largely between the Rocky Mountains and Sierra Madre Oriental on the east, and the rain shadow-creating Sierra Nevada, Transverse, there are three major hot and dry deserts in North America, all located in the Western United States and Northern Mexico. It is the second largest desert in North America, other smaller cold deserts lie within the Columbia Plateau/Columbia Basin, the Snake River Plain, and the Colorado Plateau regions. Canada has a patch of desert along the Thompson River at the Village of Ashcroft. Western Canada Ashcroft - Located along the Thompson River, the entire length of the Thompson River from Kamloops to Lytton is at least semi-arid, but at the midpoint near Ashcroft, the climate is dry enough to be classified as arid. Yp Desert, a portion of the Owyhee Desert in Idaho Oregon High Desert, aka Great Sandy Desert, eastern Oregon Alvord Desert, northwest Lahontan subregion in Nevada-part of the Northern Basin and Range Black Rock Desert, a dry lake bed. This arid region extends from the top of the North American Desert in Washington, the western arid region is east of and discontiguous from the Mojave Desert, unlike the southwestern Great Basin deserts adjacent with ecotones to the northern Mojave Desert
7.
Ecology of the Sierra Nevada
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See Sierra Nevada for general information about the mountain range in the United States. The ecology of the Sierra Nevada, located in the U. S. state of California, is diverse and complex, the plants and animals are a significant part of the scenic beauty of the mountain range. The combination of climate, topography, moisture, and soils influences the distribution of ecological communities across an elevation gradient from 1,000 feet to over 14,000 feet. Biotic zones range from scrub and chaparral communities at lower elevations, to subalpine forests, particular ecoregions that follow elevation contours are often described as a series of belts that follow the length of the Sierra Nevada. There are many hiking trails, paved and unpaved roads, and vast public lands in the Sierra Nevada for exploring the different biomes. The western and eastern Sierra Nevada have substantially different species of plants and animals, the plants and animals in the east are thus adapted to much drier conditions. The altitudes listed for the zones are for the central Sierra Nevada. The climate across the axis of the range varies somewhat. The lowest-elevation biotic zone in the Sierra Nevada is found along the boundary with the Central Valley. This zone, stretching in elevation from 500 to 3,500 feet, is the woodland zone. The foothills are vegetated with grasslands of mostly non-native grasses, mixed grasslands and woodlands savanna, a foothill woodland community of blue oak and gray pine, many of the plant communities are similar to those found on the inner California Coast Ranges. Animals typical of this zone include black bear, ringtail cat, coyote, gray squirrel, bobcat, California mule deer, in the foothills of the northern portion of the Sierra Nevada, toyon and chamise often co-dominate certain open serpentine chaparral communities. Beginning near the 3,000 foot elevation, the hot, dry summers and cool and this zone is also known as the yellow pine forest zone. The accumulation of several feet of snow during the winter is not uncommon, the diversity of tree species found in this zone make this a beautiful and interesting forest to explore. The lower montane forests also include such as California black oak, sugar pine, incense-cedar. The giant sequoia groves of the Sierra Nevada are also found within this biotic zone, animals that may be found in this zone include the dark-eyed junco, mountain chickadee, western gray squirrel, mule deer, and American black bear. The endangered Yosemite toad is found in forests of the central Sierra Nevada. The lower montane forest can be seen in Yosemite Valley and along the Wawona, Hetch Hetchy, the upper montane forest begins at higher elevations near 7,000 feet, where the montane climate is characterized by short, moist, cool summers and cold, wet winters
8.
Utah
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Utah is a state in the western United States. It became the 45th state admitted to the U. S. on January 4,1896, Utah is the 13th-largest by area, 31st-most-populous, and 10th-least-densely populated of the 50 United States. Utah has a population of more than 3 million, approximately 80% of whom live along the Wasatch Front, Utah is bordered by Colorado to the east, Wyoming to the northeast, Idaho to the north, Arizona to the south, and Nevada to the west. It also touches a corner of New Mexico in the southeast, approximately 62% of Utahns are reported to be members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or LDS, which greatly influences Utahn culture and daily life. The LDS Churchs world headquarters is located in Salt Lake City, Utah is the only state with a majority population belonging to a single church. The state is a center of transportation, education, information technology and research, government services, mining, in 2013, the U. S. Census Bureau estimated that Utah had the second fastest-growing population of any state. St. George was the metropolitan area in the United States from 2000 to 2005. Utah also has the 14th highest median income and the least income inequality of any U. S. state. A2012 Gallup national survey found Utah overall to be the best state to live in based on 13 forward-looking measurements including various economic, lifestyle, the name Utah is derived from the name of the Ute tribe. It means people of the mountains in the Ute language, according to other sources Utah is derived from the Apache name Yudah which means Tall. These Native American tribes are subgroups of the Ute-Aztec Native American ethnicity and were sedentary, the Ancestral Pueblo people built their homes through excavations in mountains, and the Fremont people built houses of straw before disappearing from the region around the 15th century. Another group of Native Americans, the Navajo, settled in the region around the 18th century, in the mid-18th century, other Uto-Aztecan tribes, including the Goshute, the Paiute, the Shoshone, and the Ute people, also settled in the region. These five groups were present when the first European explorers arrived, the southern Utah region was explored by the Spanish in 1540, led by Francisco Vásquez de Coronado, while looking for the legendary Cíbola. A group led by two Catholic priests—sometimes called the Dominguez-Escalante Expedition—left Santa Fe in 1776, hoping to find a route to the coast of California, the expedition traveled as far north as Utah Lake and encountered the native residents. The Spanish made further explorations in the region, but were not interested in colonizing the area because of its desert nature, in 1821, the year Mexico achieved its independence from Spain, the region became known as part of its territory of Alta California. European trappers and fur traders explored some areas of Utah in the early 19th century from Canada, the city of Provo, Utah was named for one, Étienne Provost, who visited the area in 1825. The city of Ogden, Utah was named after Peter Skene Ogden, in late 1824, Jim Bridger became the first known English-speaking person to sight the Great Salt Lake. Due to the salinity of its waters, Bridger thought he had found the Pacific Ocean
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California
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California is the most populous state in the United States and the third most extensive by area. Located on the western coast of the U. S, California is bordered by the other U. S. states of Oregon, Nevada, and Arizona and shares an international border with the Mexican state of Baja California. Los Angeles is Californias most populous city, and the second largest after New York City. The Los Angeles Area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nations second- and fifth-most populous urban regions, California also has the nations most populous county, Los Angeles County, and its largest county by area, San Bernardino County. The Central Valley, an agricultural area, dominates the states center. What is now California was first settled by various Native American tribes before being explored by a number of European expeditions during the 16th and 17th centuries, the Spanish Empire then claimed it as part of Alta California in their New Spain colony. The area became a part of Mexico in 1821 following its war for independence. The western portion of Alta California then was organized as the State of California, the California Gold Rush starting in 1848 led to dramatic social and demographic changes, with large-scale emigration from the east and abroad with an accompanying economic boom. If it were a country, California would be the 6th largest economy in the world, fifty-eight percent of the states economy is centered on finance, government, real estate services, technology, and professional, scientific and technical business services. Although it accounts for only 1.5 percent of the states economy, the story of Calafia is recorded in a 1510 work The Adventures of Esplandián, written as a sequel to Amadis de Gaula by Spanish adventure writer Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo. The kingdom of Queen Calafia, according to Montalvo, was said to be a land inhabited by griffins and other strange beasts. This conventional wisdom that California was an island, with maps drawn to reflect this belief, shortened forms of the states name include CA, Cal. Calif. and US-CA. Settled by successive waves of arrivals during the last 10,000 years, various estimates of the native population range from 100,000 to 300,000. The Indigenous peoples of California included more than 70 distinct groups of Native Americans, ranging from large, settled populations living on the coast to groups in the interior. California groups also were diverse in their organization with bands, tribes, villages. Trade, intermarriage and military alliances fostered many social and economic relationships among the diverse groups, the first European effort to explore the coast as far north as the Russian River was a Spanish sailing expedition, led by Portuguese captain Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, in 1542. Some 37 years later English explorer Francis Drake also explored and claimed a portion of the California coast in 1579. Spanish traders made unintended visits with the Manila galleons on their trips from the Philippines beginning in 1565
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Idaho
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Idaho is a state in the northwestern region of the United States. It borders the state of Montana to the east and northeast, Wyoming to the east, Nevada and Utah to the south, to the north, it shares a small portion of the Canadian border with the province of British Columbia. With a population of around 1.7 million people and an area of 83,569 square miles, Idaho is the 14th largest, the states capital and largest city is Boise. Idaho prior to European settlement was inhabited solely by Native American peoples, in the early 19th century, Idaho was considered part of the Oregon Country, an area disputed between the U. S. and the United Kingdom. Idaho was eventually admitted to the Union on July 3,1890, forming part of the Pacific Northwest, Idaho is divided into several distinct geographic and climatic regions. In the states north, the relatively isolated Idaho Panhandle is closely linked with Eastern Washington, the states south includes the Snake River Plain, while the south-east incorporates part of the Great Basin. Idaho is quite mountainous, and contains several stretches of the Rocky Mountains, additionally, around 38 percent of Idahos land is held by the United States Forest Service, the most of any state. Industries significant for the economy include manufacturing, agriculture, mining, forestry. Idahos agricultural sector supplies a number of different products, but the state is best known for its potato crop, the official state nickname is the Gem State, which references Idahos reputation for gemstones and, more broadly, its many wilderness areas. The exact origin of the remains a mystery. Willing later claimed that he had invented the name. Congress ultimately decided to name the area Colorado Territory when it was created in February 1861, thinking they would get a jump on the name, locals named a community in Colorado Idaho Springs. However, the name Idaho did not fall into obscurity, the same year Congress created Colorado Territory, a county called Idaho County was created in eastern Washington Territory. The county was named after a steamship named Idaho, which was launched on the Columbia River in 1860 and it is unclear whether the steamship was named before or after Willings claim was revealed. Regardless, a portion of Washington Territory, including Idaho County, was used to create Idaho Territory in 1863. Despite this lack of evidence for the origin of the name, the name Idaho may be derived from the Plains Apache word ídaahę́, which means enemy. The Comanches used this word to refer to the Idaho Territory, a 1956 Idaho history textbook says, Idaho is a Shoshoni Indian exclamation. The word consists of three parts, the first is Ee, which in English conveys the idea of coming down
11.
Great Basin
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The Great Basin is the largest area of contiguous endorheic watersheds in North America. The region spans several physiographic divisions, biomes/ecoregions, and deserts, the term Great Basin is applied to hydrographic, biological, floristic, physiographic, topographic, and ethnographic geographic areas. The name was coined by John C. Frémont, who, based on information gleaned from Joseph R. Walker as well as his own travels, the hydrographic definition is the most commonly used, and is the only one with a definitive border. The other definitions yield not only different geographical boundaries of Great Basin regions, the Great Basin physiographic section is a geographic division of the Basin and Range Province defined by Nevin Fenneman in 1931. The United States Geological Survey adapted Fennemans scheme in their Physiographic division of the United States, the section is somewhat larger than the hydrographic definition. The culture area covers approximately 400,000 sq mi, or just less than twice the area of the hydrographic Great Basin, the hydrographic Great Basin is a 209,162 square miles area that drains internally. All precipitation in the region evaporates, sinks underground or flows into lakes, as observed by Frémont, creeks, streams, or rivers find no outlet to either the Gulf of Mexico or the Pacific Ocean. The region is bounded by the Wasatch Mountains to the east, the Sierra Nevada and Cascade Ranges to the west, the south rim is less distinct. The Great Basin includes most of Nevada, half of Utah, substantial portions of Oregon and California and small areas of Idaho, Wyoming, the term Great Basin is slightly misleading, the region is actually made up of many small basins. The Great Salt Lake, Pyramid Lake, and the Humboldt Sink are a few of the drains in the Great Basin, the Salton Sink is another closed basin within the Great Basin. The Great Basin Divide separates the Great Basin from the watersheds draining to the Pacific Ocean, the southernmost portion of the Great Basin is the watershed area of the Laguna Salada. The Great Basins longest and largest river is the Bear River of 350 mi, Lake Tahoe, North Americas largest alpine lake, is part of the Great Basins central Lahontan subregion. The hydrographic Great Basin contains multiple deserts and ecoregions, each with its own set of flora. The ecological boundaries and divisions in the Great Basin are unclear, the Great Basin overlaps four different deserts, portions of the hot Mojave and Colorado Deserts to the south, and the cold Great Basin and Oregon High Deserts in the north. The deserts can be distinguished by their plants, the Joshua tree and creosote bush occur in the hot deserts, the cold deserts are generally higher than the hot, and have their precipitation spread throughout the year. The climate and flora of the Great Basin is strongly dependent on elevation, as the elevation increases, because of this, forests occur at higher elevations. Utah juniper/single-leaf pinyon and mountain mahogany form open pinyon-juniper woodland on the slopes of most ranges, stands of limber pine and Great Basin bristlecone pine can be found in some of the higher ranges
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Sierra Nevada (U.S.)
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The Sierra Nevada is a mountain range in the Western United States, between the Central Valley of California and the Basin and Range Province. The vast majority of the lies in the state of California. The Sierra runs 400 miles north-to-south, and is approximately 70 miles across east-to-west, the Sierra is home to three national parks, twenty wilderness areas, and two national monuments. These areas include Yosemite, Sequoia, and Kings Canyon National Parks, the character of the range is shaped by its geology and ecology. More than one hundred years ago during the Nevadan orogeny. The range started to uplift four M. A. ago, the uplift caused a wide range of elevations and climates in the Sierra Nevada, which are reflected by the presence of five life zones. Uplift continues due to faulting caused by forces, creating spectacular fault block escarpments along the eastern edge of the southern Sierra. The Sierra Nevada has a significant history, the California Gold Rush occurred in the western foothills from 1848 through 1855. Due to inaccessibility, the range was not fully explored until 1912, the Sierra Nevada lies in Central and Eastern California, with a very small but historically important spur extending into Nevada. West-to-east, the Sierra Nevadas elevation increases gradually from 1,000 feet in the Central Valley to an height of about 10,500 feet at its crest only 50–75 miles to the east. The east slope forms the steep Sierra Escarpment, unlike its surroundings, the range receives a substantial amount of snowfall and precipitation due to orographic lift. The Sierra Nevada stretches from the Susan River and Fredonyer Pass in the north to Tehachapi Pass in the south and it is bounded on the west by Californias Central Valley and on the east by the Basin and Range Province. The geographical boundary between the Sierra and the Cascades is virtually indistinguishable, with the Fredonyer Pass designation being traditional, physiographically, the Sierra is a section of the Cascade-Sierra Mountains province, which in turn is part of the larger Pacific Mountain System physiographic division. The range is drained on its western slope by the Central Valley watershed, the northern third of the western Sierra is part of the Sacramento River watershed, and the middle third is drained by the San Joaquin River. The eastern slope watershed of the Sierra is much narrower, its rivers flow out into the endorheic Great Basin of eastern California and western Nevada. Although none of the eastern rivers reach the sea, many of the streams from Mono Lake southwards are diverted into the Los Angeles Aqueduct which provides water to Southern California, the height of the mountains in the Sierra Nevada increases gradually from north to south. Between Fredonyer Pass and Lake Tahoe, the range from 5,000 feet to more than 9,000 feet. The crest near Lake Tahoe is roughly 9,000 feet high, farther south, the highest peak in Yosemite National Park is Mount Lyell
13.
Wasatch Range
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The Wasatch Range /ˈwɑːsætʃ/ is a mountain range that stretches approximately 160 miles from the Utah-Idaho border, south through central Utah in the western United States. It is the edge of the greater Rocky Mountains. The northern extension of the Wasatch Range, the Bear River Mountains, extends just into Idaho, according to the Utah History Encyclopedia, Wasatch in Ute means mountain pass or low pass over high range. According to William Bright the mountains were named for a Shoshoni leader who was named with the Shoshoni term wasattsi, since the earliest days of settlement, the majority of Utahs population has chosen to settle along the ranges western front, where numerous river drainages exit the mountains. The mountains were a source of water, timber. Today, 85% of Utahs population lives within 15 miles of the Wasatch Range and this concentration is known as the Wasatch Front and has a population of just over 2,000,000 residents. Salt Lake City lies between the Wasatch Range and the Great Salt Lake, at 11,928 feet, Mount Nebo, a triple peak rising above Nephi, Utah at the southern end of the range, is the highest peak of the Wasatch. In some places the mountains rise immediately from the base elevation of 4,330 feet to over 11,000 feet. Since they top out just below 12,000 feet, Wasatch peaks are not especially high compared to the Colorado Rockies or even the Uinta Mountains, the other main portion of the Rocky Mountains in Utah. However, they are sculpted by glaciers, yielding notably rugged and they also receive heavy falls of snow, in some places over 500 inches per year. This great snowfall, with its runoff, made possible a prosperous urban strip of some 25 cities along nearly 100 miles of mountain frontage. The Wasatch Range is home to a concentration of ski areas, with 11 stretching from Sundance in northern Utah County to Powder Mountain. There is also one ski resort in the Bear River Mountains, Park City alone is bordered by two ski resorts. Further north, Big Cottonwood Canyon features tricky climbing on quartzite, the canyons are located within 24 miles of downtown Salt Lake City and the year-round paved roadways can reach 5,000 ft higher in elevation above the city within a short distance. Dirt roads readily drivable in passenger cars with moderate clearance stretch up from Park City, Heber and these reach about 10,000 feet above sea level and provide impressive long-range high country views. Mount Nebo, the highest peak of the Wasatch, is located at the edge of the range. The Colorado Plateau comes to its northwest corner here as it meets the end of the Rocky Mountains. The range is punctuated by a series of faults, chief among them the Wasatch fault
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World Wide Fund for Nature
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It was formerly named the World Wildlife Fund, which remains its official name in Canada and the United States. It is the worlds largest conservation organization with five million supporters worldwide, working in more than 100 countries, supporting around 1,300 conservation. WWF is a foundation, with 55% of funding from individuals and bequests, 19% from government sources, the groups mission is to stop the degradation of the planet’s natural environment and to build a future in which humans live in harmony with nature. Currently, much of its work concentrates on the conservation of three biomes that contain most of the biodiversity, oceans and coasts, forests. Among other issues, it is concerned with endangered species, sustainable production of commodities. The Conservation Foundation, a precursor to WWF, was founded in 1947 by Fairfield Osborn in New York City in support of capitalism-friendly ecological practices. The advisory council included leading scientists such as Charles Sutherland Elton, G Evelyn Hutchinson, Aldo Leopold, Carl Sauer, and Paul Sears. It supported much of the work cited by Rachel Carsons Silent Spring, including that of John L. George, Roger Hale, Robert Rudd. In 1990, the Conservation Foundation was merged into WWF, after becoming an affiliate of WWF in 1985, the organization now known as the Conservation Foundation in the United States is the former Forest Foundation of DuPage County. The idea for a fund on behalf of endangered animals was initially proposed by Victor Stolan to Sir Julian Huxley in response to articles he published in the British newspaper The Observer, nicholson thought up the name of the organization. WWF was conceived on 29 April 1961, under the name of World Wildlife Fund, godfrey A. Rockefeller also played an important role in its creation, assembling the first staff. For sending experts to danger spots and training, making it all possible that their needs are met before it is too late. WWF has set up offices and operations around the world, the organization also began to run its own conservation projects and campaigns, and by the 1980s started to take a more strategic approach to its conservation activities. In 1986, the changed its name to World Wide Fund for Nature. However, it continued at that time to operate under the name in the United States. We shant save all we should like to, but we shall save a great deal more than if we had never tried, – Sir Peter Scott In 1996, the organization obtained general consultative status from UNESCO. WWFs giant panda logo originated from a panda named Chi Chi that had transferred from Beijing Zoo to London Zoo in 1958. The logo was founded by Young in 1966, the organization also needed an animal that would have an impact in black and white printing
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United States Environmental Protection Agency
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The EPA was proposed by President Richard Nixon and began operation on December 2,1970, after Nixon signed an executive order. The order establishing the EPA was ratified by committee hearings in the House, the agency is led by its Administrator, who is appointed by the president and approved by Congress. The current administrator is Scott Pruitt, the EPA is not a Cabinet department, but the administrator is normally given cabinet rank. The EPA has its headquarters in Washington, D. C. regional offices for each of the ten regions. The agency conducts environmental assessment, research, and education and it has the responsibility of maintaining and enforcing national standards under a variety of environmental laws, in consultation with state, tribal, and local governments. It delegates some permitting, monitoring, and enforcement responsibility to U. S. states, EPA enforcement powers include fines, sanctions, and other measures. The agency also works with industries and all levels of government in a variety of voluntary pollution prevention programs. In 2016, the agency had 15,376 full-time employees, more than half of EPAs employees are engineers, scientists, and environmental protection specialists, other employees include legal, public affairs, financial, and information technologists. Beginning in the late 1950s and through the 1960s, Congress reacted to increasing concern about the impact that human activity could have on the environment. Senator James E. Murray introduced a bill, the Resources and Conservation Act of 1959, the 1962 publication of Silent Spring by Rachel Carson alerted the public about the detrimental effects on the environment of the indiscriminate use of pesticides. In the years following, similar bills were introduced and hearings were held to discuss the state of the environment, in the colloquium, some members of Congress expressed a continuing concern over federal agency actions affecting the environment. The National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 was modeled on RCA, President Nixon signed NEPA into law on January 1,1970. The law created the Council on Environmental Quality in the Executive Office of the President, NEPA required that a detailed statement of environmental impacts be prepared for all major federal actions significantly affecting the environment. The detailed statement would ultimately be referred to as an impact statement. On July 9,1970, Nixon proposed a reorganization that consolidated many environmental responsibilities of the federal government under one agency. After conducting hearings during that summer, the House and Senate approved the proposal, the agency’s first administrator, William Ruckelshaus, took the oath of office on December 4,1970. In May 2013, Congress renamed the EPA headquarters as the William Jefferson Clinton Federal Building, the EPA is led by an Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. As of 2017 Scott Pruitt is the 14th administrator, each EPA regional office is responsible within its states for implementing the Agencys programs, except those programs that have been specifically delegated to states
16.
Mojave Desert
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The Mojave Desert is an arid rain-shadow desert and the driest desert in North America. It is located in the southwestern United States, primarily within southeastern California and southern Nevada, very small areas also extend into Utah and Arizona. The central part of the desert is sparsely populated, while its peripheries support large communities such as Las Vegas, Lancaster, Palmdale, Victorville, the Mojave Desert is bordered by the Great Basin Desert to its north and the Sonoran Desert to its south and east. Topographical boundaries include the Tehachapi Mountains to the west, and the San Gabriel Mountains, the mountain boundaries are distinct because they are outlined by the two largest faults in California – the San Andreas and Garlock faults. The Mojave Desert displays typical basin and range topography and it occupies less than 50,000 sq mi, making it the smallest of the North American deserts. The Mojave Desert is often referred to as the desert, in contrast to the low desert. However, the Mojave Desert is generally lower than the Great Basin Desert to the north, the spelling Mojave originates from the Spanish language while the spelling Mohave comes from modern English. The Mojave Desert receives less than 13 in of rain a year and is generally between 2,000 and 5,000 feet in elevation, zion National Park in Utah lies at the junction of the Mojave, the Great Basin Desert, and the Colorado Plateau. Despite its aridity, the Mojave has long been a center of production, fed by irrigation coming from groundwater. The Mojave is a desert of temperature extremes and two distinct seasons, winter months bring comfortable daytime temperatures, which dip precipitously to around 20 °F on valley floors, and below 0 °F at higher elevations. Storms moving from the Pacific Northwest can bring rain and in places even snow. More often, the shadow created by the Sierra Nevada as well as mountain ranges within the desert such as the Spring Mountains, bring only clouds. By early June, it is rare for another Pacific storm to have a significant impact on the regions weather, summer weather is dominated by heat. Temperatures on valley floors can soar above 120 °F and above 130 °F at the lowest elevations, low humidity, high temperatures, and low pressure, draw in moisture from the Gulf of Mexico creating thunderstorms across the desert southwest known as the North American monsoon. Autumn is generally pleasant, with one to two Pacific storm systems creating regional rain events, october is one of the driest and sunniest months in the Mojave, and temperatures usually remain between 70 °F and 90 °F on the valley floors. After temperature, wind is the most significant weather phenomenon in the Mojave, during the June Gloom, cooler air can be pushed out into the desert from Southern California. In Santa Ana wind events, hot air from the desert blows out into the Los Angeles basin, wind farms in these areas generate power from these winds. The other major factor in the region is elevation
17.
Sonoran Desert
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It is the hottest desert in Mexico. It has an area of 260,000 square kilometers, the western portion of the United States–Mexico border passes through the Sonoran Desert. In phytogeography, the Sonoran Desert is within the Sonoran Floristic Province of the Madrean Region in southwestern North America, the desert contains a variety of unique and endemic plants and animals, such as the saguaro and organ pipe cactus. It is bounded on the west by the Peninsular Ranges, which separate it from the California chaparral and woodlands, to the north in California and northwest Arizona, the Sonoran Desert transitions to the colder-winter, higher-elevation Mojave, Great Basin, and Colorado Plateau deserts. To the east and southeast, the transition to the coniferous Arizona Mountains forests and Sierra Madre. To the south the Sonoran–Sinaloan transition subtropical dry forest is the zone from the Sonoran Desert to the tropical dry forests of the Mexican state of Sinaloa. The deserts sub-regions include the Colorado Desert of southeastern California, many ecologists now consider Shreves Vizcaíno and Magdalena regions, which lie on the western side of the Baja California Peninsula, to be a separate ecoregion, the Baja California Desert. The Pinacate National Park includes the only active Erg dune region in North America, the nearest city to the Reserva de la Biosfera el Pinacate y Gran Desierto de Altar is Puerto Peñasco in the state of Sonora, Mexico. The Sonoran Desert area southeast of Tucson and near the Mexican border is vital habitat for the population of jaguars living within the United States. Many plants not only survive, but thrive in the conditions of the Sonoran Desert. Many have evolved to have specialized adaptations to the desert climate, the Sonoran Deserts biseasonal rainfall pattern results in more plant species than any other desert in the world. The Sonoran Desert includes plant genera and species from the family, palm family, cactus family, legume family. The Sonoran is the place in the world where the famous saguaro cactus grows in the wild. Cholla, beavertail, hedgehog, fishhook, prickly pear, nightblooming cereus, creosote bush and bur sage dominate valley floors. Indigo bush and Mormon tea are other shrubs that may be found, wildflowers of the Sonoran Desert include desert sand verbena, desert sunflower, and evening primroses. Ascending from the valley up bajadas, various such as velvet mesquite, palo verde, desert ironwood, desert willow. Shrubs found at higher elevations include whitethorn acacia, fairy duster, in the desert subdivisions found on Baja California, cardon cactus, elephant tree, and boojum tree occur. The California fan palm is found in the Colorado Desert section of the Sonoran Desert and it is found at spring-fed oases, such as in Anza Borrego Desert State Park, Joshua Tree National Park, and the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge
18.
Chihuahuan Desert
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The Chihuahuan Desert is a desert and ecoregion designation covering parts of Mexico and the United States. It occupies much of West Texas and parts of southern New Mexico and it is bordered on the west by the extensive Sierra Madre Occidental range, along with northern portions of the Sierra Madre Oriental range. With an area of about 362,000 km2, it is the third largest desert of the Western Hemisphere and the second largest in North America, after the Great Basin Desert. There are a few areas within the desert, the largest is Ciudad Juárez with almost two million inhabitants, Chihuahua and Torreón, then the US cities of El Paso and Albuquerque. Las Cruces and Roswell are among the significant cities in this ecoregion. Saltillo, Monterrey, and Santa Fe are located near the Chihuahuan desert, according to the World Wide Fund for Nature the Chihuahuan Desert may be the most biologically diverse desert in the world as measured by species richness or endemism. The region has been degraded, mainly due to grazing. Many native grasses and other species have become dominated by native plants, including creosote bush and mesquite, due to overgrazing. The Mexican wolf, once abundant, has been extirpated, climatically, the desert has a dry climate with only one rainy season in the summer and smaller amounts of precipitation in early winter. Most of the summer rains falls between late June and early October, during the North American Monsoon when moist air from the Gulf of Mexico penetrates into the region, the average annual temperature in the desert is 24 °C, which varies with altitude. The hottest temperatures in the occur in lower elevation areas. Northern areas have more severe winters than the portion and can receive snowstorms. The mean annual precipitation for the Chihuahuan Desert is 235 mm with a range of approximately 150–400 mm, nearly two-thirds of the arid zone stations have annual totals between 225 and 275 mm. Snowfall is scant except at the higher elevation edges, the desert is fairly young, existing for only 8000 years. Creosote bush is the dominant plant species on gravelly and occasional sandy soils in areas within the Chihuahuan Desert. The other species it is found depends on factors such as the soil, altitude. Viscid acacia, and tarbush dominate northern portions, as does broom dalea on sandy soils in western portions, Yucca and Opuntia species are abundant in foothill edges and the central third, while Arizona rainbow cactus and Mexican fire-barrel cactus inhabit portions near the US–Mexico border. Herbaceous plants, such as muhly, blue grama, gypsum grama
19.
Altitudinal zonation
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Altitudinal zonation in mountainous regions describes the natural layering of ecosystems that occurs at distinct altitudes due to varying environmental conditions. Temperature, humidity, soil composition, and solar radiation are important factors in determining altitudinal zones, Altitudinal zonation was first hypothesized by geographer Alexander von Humboldt who noticed that temperature drops with increasing elevation. Zonation also occurs in intertidal and marine environments, as well as on shorelines, scientist C. Hart Merriam observed that changes in vegetation and animals in altitudinal zones map onto changes expected with increased latitude in his concept of life zones. Today, altitudinal zonation represents a concept in mountain research. The cause of zonation is complex, due to possible interactions. Careful measurements and statistical tests are required prove the existence of discrete communities along an elevation gradient, decreasing air temperature usually coincides with increasing elevation, which directly influences the length the growing season at different altitudes of the mountain. For mountains located in deserts, extreme temperatures also limit the ability of large deciduous or coniferous trees to grow near the base of mountains. In addition, plants can be sensitive to soil temperatures. The most important variable is precipitation at various altitudes, as warm, moist air rises up the windward side of a mountain, the air temperature cools and loses its capacity to hold moisture. Thus, the greatest amount of rainfall is expected at mid-altitudes, above a certain elevation the rising air becomes too dry and cold, and thus discourages tree growth. Although rainfall may not be a significant factors for some mountains, both overall levels of precipitation and humidity influence soil moisture as well. One of the most important factors that controls the lower boundary of the encinal or forest level is the ratio of evaporation to soil moisture, the nutrient content of soils at different altitudes further complicates the demarcation of altitudinal zones. Soils with higher nutrient content, due to higher decomposition rates or greater weathering of rocks, better support larger trees, the altitude of better soils varies with the particular mountain being studied. For example, for mountains found in the rain forest regions. At this latitude more acidic, humose soils exist at elevations in the montane or subapline levels. In a different example, weathering is hampered by low temperatures at higher elevations in the Rocky Mountain of the western United States, in addition to physical forces, biological forces may also produce zonation. For example, a competitor can force weaker competitors to higher or lower positions on the elevation gradient. The importance of competition is difficult to assess without experiments, which are expensive, however, there is an accumulating body of evidence that competitively dominant plants may seize the preferred locations
20.
Pinyon pine
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The pinyon or piñon pine group grows in the southwestern United States and in Mexico. The trees yield edible pinyon nuts, which were a staple of the Native Americans, the name comes from the Spanish Pino piñonero, a name used for both the American varieties and the Stone Pine common in Spain, which also produces edible piñon nuts typical of Mediterranean cuisine. Harvesting techniques of the prehistoric Indians are still being used to today to collect the seeds for personal use or for commercialization. The pinyon nut or seed is high in fats and calories, pinyon wood, especially when burned, has a distinctive fragrance, making it a common wood to burn in chimineas. The pinyon pine trees are known to influence the soil in which they grow by increasing concentrations of both macronutrients and micronutrients. Some of the species are known to hybridize, the most notable ones being P. quadrifolia with P. monophylla, the two-needle piñon is the official state tree of New Mexico. Genetic differentiation in the pine has been observed associated to insect herbivory. The nuts continue to be gathered, eaten, and marketed, all species of pine produce edible seeds, but in North America only pinyon produces seeds large enough to be a major source of food. The pinyon has probably been a source of food since shortly after the earliest arrival of Homo sapiens in the American southwest,12,000 or more years ago. Hunter/gatherer Indians undoubtedly collected the edible seeds, but, at least in some areas, the suitability of pinyon seeds as a staple food is reduced because of the unreliability of the harvest. Abundant crops of cones and seeds occur only every two to seven years, averaging a good crop every four years, years of high production of seed tend to be the same over wide areas of the pinyon range. In 1878, naturalist John Muir described the Indian method of harvesting pinyon seeds in Nevada, the scorching burned off the sticky resin coating the cones and loosened the seeds. The cones were then dried in the sun until the seeds could be easily extracted, Muir said the Indians closely watched the pinyon trees year-round and could predict the scarcity or abundance of the crop months before harvest time. In 1891, B. H. Dutcher observed the harvesting of pinyon seeds by the Panamint Indians in the Panamint Range overlooking Death Valley, California. The harvesting method was similar to the foregoing except that the seeds were extracted immediately after the cones had been scorched in the brushwood fire. Both the above accounts described a method of extracting the seeds from the green cones, each pinyon cone produces 10 to 30 seeds and a productive stand of pinyon trees in a good year can produce 250 pounds on 1 acre of land. An average worker can collect about 22 pounds of unshelled pinyon seed in a days work, production per worker of 22 pounds of unshelled pinyon seeds—more than one-half that in shelled seeds—amounts to nearly 30,000 calories of nutrition. That is a high yield for the effort expanded by hunter-gatherers, moreover, the pinyon seeds are high in fat, often in short supply for hunter-gatherers
21.
Juniper
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Junipers are coniferous plants in the genus Juniperus /dʒuːˈnɪpərəs/ of the cypress family Cupressaceae. The highest-known Juniper forest occurs at an altitude of 16,000 feet in south-eastern Tibet, Junipers vary in size and shape from tall trees, 20–40 m tall, to columnar or low spreading shrubs with long trailing branches. They are evergreen with needle-like and/or scale-like leaves and they can be either monoecious or dioecious. The female seed cones are very distinctive, with fleshy, fruit-like coalescing scales which fuse together to form a structure, 4–27 mm long. In some species these berries are red-brown or orange but in most they are blue, they are often aromatic, the seed maturation time varies between species from 6–18 months after pollination. The male cones are similar to those of other Cupressaceae, with 6–20 scales, in zones 7 through 10, junipers can bloom and release pollen several times each year. A few species of juniper bloom in autumn, while most species pollinate from early winter until late spring. Many junipers have two types of leaves, seedlings and some twigs of trees have needle-like leaves 5–25 mm long. When juvenile foliage occurs on mature plants, it is most often found on shaded shoots, leaves on fast-growing whip shoots are often intermediate between juvenile and adult. In some species, all the foliage is of the juvenile needle-like type, in some of these, the needles are jointed at the base, in others, the needles merge smoothly with the stem, not jointed. The needle-leaves of junipers are hard and sharp, making the juvenile foliage very prickly to handle and this can be a valuable identification feature in seedlings, as the otherwise very similar juvenile foliage of cypresses and other related genera is soft and not prickly. Duplicana feed on the bark around injuries or canker, the number of juniper species is in dispute, with two recent studies giving very different totals, Farjon accepting 52 species, and Adams accepting 67 species. The junipers are divided into sections, though which species belong to which sections is still far from clear. The section Juniperus is a monophyletic group though. The adult leaves are needle-like, in whorls of three, and jointed at the base, Juniperus, Cones with 3 separate seeds, needles with one stomatal band. Juniperus communis - Common Juniper Juniperus communis subsp, alpina - Alpine Juniper Juniperus conferta - Shore Juniper Juniperus rigida - Temple Juniper or Needle Juniper Juniperus sect. Oxycedrus, Cones with 3 separate seeds, needles with two stomatal bands, caryocedrus, Cones with 3 seeds fused together, needles with two stomatal bands. Juniperus drupacea - Syrian Juniper Juniperus sect, the adult leaves are mostly scale-like, similar to those of Cupressus species, in opposite pairs or whorls of three, and the juvenile needle-like leaves are not jointed at the base
22.
Vertebrate
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Vertebrates /ˈvɜːrtᵻbrᵻts/ comprise all species of animals within the subphylum Vertebrata /-ɑː/. Vertebrates represent the majority of the phylum Chordata, with currently about 66,000 species described. Vertebrates include the fish and the jawed vertebrates, which include the cartilaginous fish. A bony fish known as the lobe-finned fishes is included with tetrapods, which are further divided into amphibians, reptiles, mammals. Extant vertebrates range in size from the frog species Paedophryne amauensis, at as little as 7.7 mm, to the blue whale, vertebrates make up less than five percent of all described animal species, the rest are invertebrates, which lack vertebral columns. The vertebrates traditionally include the hagfish, which do not have proper vertebrae due to their loss in evolution, though their closest living relatives, hagfish do, however, possess a cranium. For this reason, the vertebrate subphylum is sometimes referred to as Craniata when discussing morphology, molecular analysis since 1992 has suggested that hagfish are most closely related to lampreys, and so also are vertebrates in a monophyletic sense. Others consider them a group of vertebrates in the common taxon of craniata. The word origin of vertebrate derives from the Latin word vertebratus, the Proto-Indo-European language origins are still unclear. Vertebrate is derived from the vertebra, which refers to any of the bones or segments of the spinal column. All vertebrates are built along the basic body plan, a stiff rod running through the length of the animal, with a hollow tube of nervous tissue above it. In all vertebrates, the mouth is found at, or right below, the remaining part of the body continuing after the anus forms a tail with vertebrae and spinal cord, but no gut. However, a few vertebrates have secondarily lost this anatomy, retaining the notochord into adulthood, such as the sturgeon, jawed vertebrates are typified by paired appendages, but this trait is not required in order for an animal to be a vertebrate. All basal vertebrates breathe with gills, the gills are carried right behind the head, bordering the posterior margins of a series of openings from the pharynx to the exterior. Each gill is supported by a cartilagenous or bony gill arch, the bony fish have three pairs of arches, cartilaginous fish have five to seven pairs, while the primitive jawless fish have seven. The vertebrate ancestor no doubt had more arches than this, as some of their relatives have more than 50 pairs of gills. In amphibians and some primitive fishes, the larvae bear external gills. These are reduced in adulthood, their function taken over by the gills proper in fishes, some amphibians retain the external larval gills in adulthood, the complex internal gill system as seen in fish apparently being irrevocably lost very early in the evolution of tetrapods
23.
Greater sage-grouse
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The greater sage-grouse is the largest grouse in North America. Its range is sagebrush country in the western United States and southern Alberta and Saskatchewan and it was known as simply the sage grouse until the Gunnison sage-grouse was recognized as a separate species in 2000. The Mono Basin population of sage grouse may also be distinct, the greater sage-grouse is a permanent resident in its breeding grounds but may move short distances to lower elevations during winter. It makes use of a lek system in mating and nests on the ground under sagebrush or grass patches. It forages on the ground, mainly eating sagebrush but also other plants and insects, Greater sage-grouse do not have a muscular crop and are not able to digest hard seeds like other grouse. The species is in decline across its range due to loss and has been recognized as threatened or near threatened by several national and international organizations. Adult greater sage-grouse have a long, pointed tail and legs with feathers to the toes, the adult female is mottled gray-brown with a light brown throat and dark belly. Adult males range in length from 26 to 30 inches and weigh between 4 and 7 pounds, adult females are smaller, ranging in length from 19 to 23 inches and weighing between 2 and 4 pounds. Greater sage-grouse are obligate residents of the ecosystem, usually inhabiting sagebrush-grassland or juniper sagebrush-grassland communities. Meadows surrounded by sagebrush may be used as feeding grounds, use of meadows with a crown cover of silver sagebrush is especially important in Nevada during the summer. Greater sage-grouse occur throughout the range of big sagebrush, except on the periphery of big sagebrush distribution, Greater Sage-Grouse prefer mountain big sagebrush and Wyoming big sagebrush communities to basin big sagebrush communities. Sagebrush cover types other than big sagebrush can fulfill greater sage-grouse habitat requirements, in fact, Greater sage-grouse in Antelope Valley, California, for example, use black sagebrush cover types more often than the more common big sagebrush cover types. Hens with broods on the National Antelope Refuge in Oregon were most frequently found in low sagebrush cover, desert shrub habitat may also be used by greater sage-grouse. Sagebrush communities supporting greater sage-grouse include silver sagebrush and fringed sagebrush and their historic range spanned 16 American states and Alberta, British Columbia, and Saskatchewan in Canada. Between 1988 and 2012, the population declined by 98%, by 2012, they were extirpated from British Columbia and left with only remnant populations in Alberta with 40 to 60 adult birds, and in Saskatchewan with only 55 to 80 adult birds. By 2013, sage grouse were also extirpated from five U. S. states, in 2013, the Canadian Governor in Council on behalf of the Minister of the Environment, under the Species at Risk Act, annexed an emergency order for the protection of the greater sage-grouse. Greater sage-grouse are notable for their elaborate courtship rituals, each spring, males congregate in leks and perform a strutting display. Groups of females observe these displays and select the most attractive males with which to mate, the dominant male located in the center of the lek typically copulates with around 80% of the females on the lek
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Kit fox
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The kit fox is a fox species of North America. Its range is primarily in the Southwestern United States and northern, some mammalogists classify it as conspecific with the swift fox, V. velox, but molecular systematics imply that the two species are distinct. The northernmost part of its range is the interior of Oregon. Its eastern limit is southwestern Colorado and it can be found south through Nevada, Utah, southeastern California, Arizona, New Mexico, and into western Texas. The endangered San Joaquin kit fox was formerly common in the San Joaquin Valley. Its 1990 population was estimated to be 7,000 and this subspecies is still endangered, after nearly 50 years of being on the Endangered Species List. Officially this subspecies was listed March 3,1967, on September 26,2007, Wildlands Inc. announced the designation of the 684-acre Deadman Creek Conservation Bank, which is intended specifically to protect habitat of the San Joaquin kit fox. However, the continues to decline mostly due to heavy habitat loss. The Southern California kit fox was a population of kit foxes native to regions of Southern California which became extinct in 1903. The desert kit fox lives in the Mojave Desert, the kit fox is the smallest species of the family Canidae found in North America It has large ears, between 71 and 95 mm, that help the fox lower its body temperature and give it exceptional hearing. This species exhibits sexual dimorphism, with the male being slightly larger, the average species weight is between 1.6 and 2.7 kg. The body length is 455 to 535 mm, the tail adds another 250–340 mm to its length. It usually has a coat, with rusty tones. Unlike the gray fox, it has no stripe along the length of its tail and its color ranges from yellowish to gray, and the back is usually darker than the majority of its coat, its belly and inner ears are usually lighter. It has distinct dark patches around the nose, the kit fox is mostly a nocturnal animal, but sometimes ventures out of its den during the day. While primarily carnivorous, if food is scarce, it has known to eat tomatoes, cactus fruits. Different kit fox families can occupy the same hunting grounds, Kit foxes favor arid climates, such as desert scrub, chaparral, and grasslands. Good examples of habitats are sagebrush Artemisia tridentata and saltbrush Atriplex polycarpa
25.
Ord's kangaroo rat
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Ords kangaroo rat is a kangaroo rat native to western North America, specifically the Great Plains and the Great Basin, with its range extending from extreme southern Canada to central Mexico. Ords kangaroo rat has a toe on its hind feet. It is bicolored with gold-brown dorsal hair and a white stomach and it has a long tail with a bushy tip, and is dark dorsally and ventrally with a white lateral stripe. Its hind feet are modified for jumping, and exceed 35 mm in length and its tail is usually less than 160 mm, distinguishing it from D. elator. Though a common species in the United States, the population in Canada is considered endangered, the currently accepted scientific name for Ords kangaroo rat is Dipodomys ordii Woodhouse. It belongs to the family Heteromyidae, kangaroo rats and mice, hall listed 35 subspecies, but Kennedy and Schnell reported many of these subspecies are probably not legitimate since they were based on the assumption of little sexual dimorphism in the species. It has now established that sexual dimorphism within the taxon is considerable. Ords kangaroo rat ranges from southern Alberta and southern Saskatchewan to southern Hidalgo, Mexico, Ords kangaroo rats occur mainly in semiarid, open habitats. In Nevada, they were trapped in desert scrub and gravelly soil, flat pebble desert, in Utah, Ords kangaroo rats have an affinity for open shrublands and grasslands on sandy soils. In western South Dakota, Ords kangaroo rats are associated with black-tailed prairie dog towns, in Wyoming, Ords kangaroo rats are abundant in sand dune communities where vegetation is greater than 10 inches tall and bare soil exceeds 40%. In Colorado, Ords kangaroo rats were primarily captured in areas with firm soil. Firm or lightly compacted soils are needed for construction, highly compacted soils are too hard for them to dig. In areas of pavement or tough clay soils in the Trans-Pecos region of Texas, Ords kangaroo rats are confined to pockets of windblown sand. Strong intraspecific competition and little competition occurs among Dipodomys species. Herbicide defoliation of shrubs reduced live canopy cover of creosotebush and resulted in an increase in bush muhly, after treatment, Ords kangaroo rats replaced Merriams kangaroo rats as the dominant rodent. This was suggested to be due to the change in structure to open grass. Removal experiments to establish single species populations of rats were unsuccessful, since many kangaroo rats are transient. Only one adult occupies a burrow system, except for a brief period during breeding activity
26.
Phrynosoma platyrhinos
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The desert horned lizard is a species of phrynosomatid lizard native to western North America. They are often referred to as horny toads, although they are not toads and this species of lizard has a distinctive flat body with one row of fringe scales down the sides. They have one row of enlarged scales on each side of the throat. Colours can vary and generally blend in with the color of the surrounding soil and they have two dark blotches on the neck that are very prominent and are bordered posteriorly by a light white or grey color. They also have pointed scales on the dorsum of the body, juveniles are similar to adults, but have shorter and less-pronounced cranial spines. Desert horned lizards have horns that are wide at the base, which isnt true for their congener, Desert horned lizards prey primarily on invertebrates, such as ants crickets, grasshoppers, beetles, worms, flies, lady bugs, meal worms and some plant material. They can often be found in the vicinity of ant hills, when they find an area of soft sand, they usually shake themselves vigorously, throwing sand over their backs and leaving only their head exposed. This allows them to hide from predators and await their unsuspecting prey, the flat-tailed horned lizard occurs in areas of fine sand, while the short-horned lizard is found in shortgrass prairie all the way up into spruce-fir forest. The most common species in the Arizona Upland subdivision is the horned lizard. They typically range from southern Idaho in the north to northern Mexico in the south and these lizards mate in the spring and lay 2-16 eggs in June to July, which hatch sometime in August. Egg incubation lasts about 50–60 days, individuals reach maturity in about three years. They are generally a species, but have been known to try to push their cranial spines into the hand while held. When excited, they puff themselves up with air, similar to the way a Chuckwalla does, if spotted near a bush, they will dash into it in an attempt to find cover from any threat. Unlike several other horned lizard species, desert horned lizards are unable to squirt blood from their eyes, texas horned lizard Hylton, Brodie, Ecology and Species Comparisons of the Short-Horned Lizard and the Desert Horned Lizard, from the following website, Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum
27.
Rain shadow
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A rain shadow is a dry area on the leeward side of a mountainous area. The mountains block the passage of rain-producing weather systems and cast a shadow of dryness behind them, wind and moist air is drawn by the prevailing winds towards the top of the mountains, where it condenses and precipitates before it crosses the top. The air, without much moisture left, advances behind the mountains creating a side called the rain shadow. The condition exists because warm moist air rises by orographic lifting to the top of a mountain range, as atmospheric pressure decreases with increasing altitude, the air has expanded and adiabatically cooled to the point that the air reaches its adiabatic dew point. At the adiabatic dew point, moisture condenses onto the mountain and it precipitates on the top, the air descends on the leeward side, but due to the precipitation it has lost much of its moisture. There are regular patterns of prevailing winds found in round the Earths equatorial region. The zone designated the trade winds is the zone between about 30° N and 30° S, blowing predominantly from the northeast in the Northern Hemisphere, the strongest westerly winds in the middle latitudes can come in the Roaring Forties between 30 and 50 degrees latitude. The Dasht-i-Lut in Iran is in the shadow of the Elburz. The Ordos Desert is rain shadowed by mountain chains including the Kara-naryn-ula, the Sheitenula, and the Yin Mountains, which link on to the south end of the Great Khingan Mountains. The Thar desert is bounded and rain shadowed by the Aravalli ranges to the south-east, the Himalaya to the northeast, Eastern Side of Sahyadri ranges on Deccan e. g. Northern Karnataka & Solapur, Beed, Osmanabad and Vidharba Plateau of India. The central region of Myanmar is in the shadow of the Arakan Mountains and is almost semi-arid with only 750 millimetres of rain as against as much as 5.5 metres on the Rakhine State coast. The High Peaks of Mount Lebanon rain-shadow the northern parts of the Beqaa Valley, the Judean Desert, the Dead Sea and the western slopes of the Moab Mountains on the opposite side are rain-shadowed by the Judean Hills. The Atacama Desert in Chile is the driest non-polar desert on Earth because it is blocked from moisture on both sides, Cuyo and Eastern Patagonia is rain shadowed from the prevailing westerly winds by the Andes range and is arid. The Argentinian wine region of Cuyo and Northern Patagonia is almost completely dependent on irrigation, on the largest scale, the entirety of the North American Interior Plains are shielded from the prevailing Westerlies carrying moist Pacific weather by the North American Cordillera. More pronounced effects are observed, however, in valley regions within the Cordillera. Most rainshadows in the western United States are due to the Sierra Nevada, champlain Valley in upstate New York. It is protected by the Adirondack Mountains, hawaii also has rain shadows, with some areas being desert. Orographic lifting produces the worlds second-highest annual precipitation record,12.7 meters, on the island of Kauai, the entire island of Kahoolawe lies in the rain shadow of Mauis East Maui Volcano
28.
Rocky Mountains
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The Rocky Mountains, commonly known as the Rockies, are a major mountain range in western North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch more than 3,000 miles from the northernmost part of British Columbia, in western Canada, to New Mexico, in the Southwestern United States. Within the North American Cordillera, the Rockies are somewhat distinct from the Pacific Coast Ranges, the Rocky Mountains were initially formed from 80 million to 55 million years ago during the Laramide orogeny, in which a number of plates began to slide underneath the North American plate. The angle of subduction was shallow, resulting in a belt of mountains running down western North America. Since then, further tectonic activity and erosion by glaciers have sculpted the Rockies into dramatic peaks, at the end of the last ice age, humans started to inhabit the mountain range. The first mention of their present name by a European was in the journal of Jacques Legardeur de Saint-Pierre in 1752, the Rocky Mountains are commonly defined as stretching from the Liard River in British Columbia south to the Rio Grande in New Mexico. The United States definition of the Rockies includes the Cabinet and Salish Mountains of Idaho and their counterparts north of the Kootenai River, the Columbia Mountains, are considered a separate system in Canada, lying to the west of the huge Rocky Mountain Trench. This runs the length of British Columbia from its beginnings in the middle Flathead River valley in western Montana to the bank of the Liard River. The Rockies vary in width from 70 to 300 miles, also west of the Rocky Mountain Trench, farther north and facing the Muskwa Range across the trench, are the Stikine Ranges and Omineca Mountains of the Interior Mountains system of British Columbia. A small area east of Prince George, British Columbia on the side of the Trench. In Canada geographers define three main groups of ranges, the Continental Ranges, Hart Ranges and Muskwa Ranges, the Muskwa and Hart Ranges together comprise what is known as the Northern Rockies. The western edge of the Rockies includes ranges such as the Wasatch near Salt Lake City, the Great Basin and Columbia River Plateau separate these sub-ranges from distinct ranges further to the west, most prominent among which are the Sierra Nevada, Cascade Range and Coast Mountains. The Rocky Mountain System within the United States is a United States physiographic region, the Rocky Mountains are notable for containing the highest peaks in central North America. The ranges highest peak is Mount Elbert located in Colorado at 14,440 feet above sea level, Mount Robson in British Columbia, at 12,972 feet, is the highest peak in the Canadian Rockies. The Continental Divide of the Americas is located in the Rocky Mountains, triple Divide Peak in Glacier National Park is so named because water that falls on the mountain reaches not only the Atlantic and Pacific, but Hudson Bay as well. Farther north in Alberta, the Athabasca and other rivers feed the basin of the Mackenzie River, see Rivers of the Rocky Mountains for a list of rivers. Human population is not very dense in the Rocky Mountains, with an average of four people per square kilometer, however, the human population grew rapidly in the Rocky Mountain states between 1950 and 1990. The 40-year statewide increases in range from 35% in Montana to about 150% in Utah
29.
Gulf of Mexico
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The Gulf of Mexico is an ocean basin largely surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United States, on the southwest and south by Mexico, and on the southeast by Cuba. The U. S. states of Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas border the Gulf on the north, Atlantic and Pacific coasts, or sometimes the south coast, in juxtaposition to the Great Lakes region being the north coast. One of the seven main areas is the Gulf of Mexico basin. The Gulf of Mexico formed approximately 300 million years ago as a result of plate tectonics, the Gulfs basin is roughly oval and is approximately 810 nautical miles wide and floored by sedimentary rocks and recent sediments. It is connected to part of the Atlantic Ocean through the Florida Straits between the U. S. and Cuba, and with the Caribbean Sea via the Yucatan Channel between Mexico and Cuba, with the narrow connection to the Atlantic, the Gulf experiences very small tidal ranges. The size of the Gulf basin is approximately 1.6 million km2, almost half of the basin is shallow continental shelf waters. The basin contains a volume of roughly 2,500 quadrillion liters, the consensus among geologists who have studied the geology of the Gulf of Mexico, is that prior to the Late Triassic, the Gulf of Mexico did not exist. It was created by the collision of plates that formed Pangea. As interpreted by Roy Van Arsdale and Randel T. Cox, geologists and other Earth scientists agree in general that the present Gulf of Mexico basin originated in Late Triassic time as the result of rifting within Pangea. The rifting was associated with zones of weakness within Pangea, including sutures where the Laurentia, South American, first, there was a Late Triassic-Early Jurassic phase of rifting during which rift valleys formed and filled with continental red beds. Second, as rifting progressed through Early and Middle Jurassic time and it was at this time that tectonics first created a connection to the Pacific Ocean across central Mexico and later eastward to the Atlantic Ocean. This flooded the basin created by rifting and crustal thinning to create the Gulf of Mexico. While the Gulf of Mexico was a basin, the subsiding transitional crust was blanketed by the widespread deposition of Louann Salt. Initially, during the Late Jurassic, continued rifting widened the Gulf of Mexico and progressed to the point that sea-floor spreading, at this point, sufficient circulation with the Atlantic Ocean was established that the deposition of Louann Salt ceased. During the Late Jurassic through Early Cretaceous, the occupied by the Gulf of Mexico experienced a period of cooling. The subsidence was the result of a combination of stretching, cooling. Initially, the combination of stretching and cooling caused about 5–7 km of tectonic subsidence of the central thin transitional
30.
Lake Lahontan
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Lake Lahontan was a large endorheic Pleistocene lake of modern northwestern Nevada that extended into northeastern California and southern Oregon. The area of the lake is a large portion of the Great Basin that borders the Sacramento River watershed to the west. At its peak approximately 12,700 years ago, the lake had an area of over 8,500 square miles. The depth of the lake was about 900 feet at present day Pyramid Lake, Lake Lahontan, during this most recent glacial period, would have been one of the largest lakes in North America. Climate change around the end of the Pleistocene epoch led to a gradual desiccation of ancient Lake Lahontan, the lake had largely disappeared in its extended form by about 9,000 years ago. As the surface elevation dropped, the broke up into series of smaller lakes, most of which rapidly dried up. These playas include the Black Rock Desert, the Carson Sink, the only modern remnants existing as true lakes are Pyramid Lake and Walker Lake. Winnemucca Lake has been dry since the 1930s and Honey Lake periodically desiccates, the ancient shoreline is evidenced by tufa formations throughout the area. Surprisingly, the watershed feeding Lake Lahontan is not thought to have been significantly wetter during its highstand than it is currently, rather, its desiccation is thought to be mostly due to increase in the evaporation rate as the climate warmed. Archaeological evidence along the shore indicates the existence of the lake coincided roughly with the first appearance of humans in the region, the Lahontan cutthroat trout evolved as a predator species within the waters of Lake Lahontan, feeding on native chub and sucker. This subspecies of cutthroat trout survives today in tributary rivers of the Great Basin, and has been reintroduced to Pyramid Lake and Walker Lake after being extirpated during the 20th century
31.
Lake Bonneville
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Lake Bonneville was a prehistoric pluvial lake that covered much of the eastern part of North Americas Great Basin region. Most of the territory it covered was in present-day Utah, though parts of the lake extended into present-day Idaho and Nevada. Formed about 32,000 years ago, Lake Bonneville existed until about 14,500 years ago, following the Bonneville Flood, as the release is now known, the lake receded to a level called the Provo Level. Many of the geological characteristics of the Great Basin are due to the effects of the lake. At more than 1,000 ft deep and more than 19,691 square miles in area, with the change in climate, the lake began drying up, leaving Great Salt Lake, Utah Lake, Sevier Lake, Rush Lake, and Little Salt Lake as remnants. Bonneville was noted for his expeditions to the Oregon Country and the Great Basin, the lake was probably not a singular entity either, geologic evidence suggests that it may have evaporated and reformed as many as 28 times in the last 800,000 years. Great Salt Lake, Utah Lake, and Sevier Lake are the largest remnants of the original Lake Bonneville, several levels of the old shorelines are still visible above Salt Lake City, along the Wasatch Front and elsewhere. The appearance of the shorelines is that of a shelf or bench protruding from the mountainside, four main shorelines are associated with the fluctuating levels of the ancient lake. The Stansbury, Bonneville, Provo and Gilbert shorelines each mark a time when lake level remained constant long enough to deposit massive accumulations of sand, the Bonneville Bench, at about 5,102 feet above sea level, is part of the preserved ice age shoreline. This shoreline marks the highest level attained by the Pleistocene lake approximately 15,500 years ago, during this period, the lake covered over 20,000 sq mi and was over 980 ft deep in places. About 14,500 years ago, the level fell catastrophically as Lake Bonneville overflowed near Red Rock Pass, Idaho. The lake level fell some 344 ft to what is now the lower bench in a flood that geologists estimate to have lasted up to a year. It is estimated that this breach released 1,000 cubic miles of water in the first few weeks, during this period, the Red Rock Pass contained a river carrying water overflowing out of Lake Bonneville into the Snake River. A slight transgression or rise in lake level occurred about 10,900 to 10,300 years ago, in addition to geological traces, the lake has left a legacy of related fish distributed in now-isolated bodies of water
32.
Larrea tridentata
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In Sonora, it is more commonly called hediondilla. It is a plant in the family Zygophyllaceae. The specific name refers to its three-toothed leaves. The species grows as far east as Zapata County, Texas, L. tridentata is an evergreen shrub growing to 1 to 3 m tall, rarely 4 m. The stems of the plant bear resinous, dark green leaves with two opposite lanceolate leaflets joined at the base, with a deciduous awn between them, each leaflet 7 to 18 mm long and 4 to 8.5 mm broad. The flowers are up to 25 mm in diameter, with five yellow petals, galls may form by the activity of the creosote gall midge. The whole plant exhibits a characteristic odor of creosote, from which the name derives. In the regions where it grows, its smell is associated with the smell of rain. As the creosote bush grows older, its oldest branches eventually die and this normally happens when the plant is 30 to 90 years old. Eventually, the old crown dies and the new one becomes a clonal colony from the previous plant, the King Clone creosote ring is one of the oldest living organisms on Earth. It has been alive an estimated 11,700 years, in the central Mojave Desert near present-day Lucerne Valley, California. Measurements of the plant, as well as radiocarbon dating of fragments, were used to determine the plants mean annual growth rate outward from the center of the ring. By measuring the diameter of the ring, its age could be estimated. It is within the Creosote Rings Preserve of the Lucerne Valley, Creosote bush is most common on the well-drained soils of alluvial fans and flats. In parts of its range, it may cover areas in practically pure stands. Chemicals found in creosote bush roots have shown to inhibit the growth of burro bush roots. Creosote bush stands tend to display an evenly spaced distribution of plants, originally, it was assumed that the plant produced a water-soluble inhibitor that prevented the growth of other bushes near mature, healthy bushes. Owing to the harshness of the germination environment above mature root systems, germination is actually quite active during wet periods, but most of the young plants die very quickly unless water conditions are optimal
33.
Owens Valley
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The mountain peaks on either side reach above 14,000 feet in elevation, while the floor of the Owens Valley is at 4,000 feet, making the valley one of the deepest in the United States. The Sierra Nevada casts the valley in a shadow, which makes Owens Valley the Land of Little Rain. The bed of Owens Lake, now a predominantly dry endorheic alkali flat and these episodes inspired aspects of the film Chinatown. Towns in the Owens Valley include Bishop, Lone Pine, Independence, the major road in the valley is U. S. Route 395. Owens Valley is a graben—a downdropped block of land between two vertical faults, Owens Valley is the westernmost graben in the Basin and Range Province. It is also part of a trough which extends from Oregon to Death Valley called the Walker Lane, the western flank of much of the valley has large moraines coming off the Sierra Nevada. These unsorted piles of rock, boulders, and dust were pushed to where they are by glaciers during the last ice age, an excellent example of a moraine is on State Route 168 as it climbs into Buttermilk Country. This graben was formed by a series of earthquakes, such as the 1872 Lone Pine earthquake. The topmost part of this escarpment is exposed at Alabama Hills, the Owens Valley is also part of the Long Valley Caldera, a super-volcano that last erupted 260,000 years ago. It is filled with many mini-volcanoes, which look like hills, see also, Inyo and Mono Craters. Smaller versions of the Devils Postpile, can be found, for example, the valley contains plants adapted to alkali flat habitat. One of these, the Owens Valley checkerbloom, is endemic to Owens Valley, the valley was inhabited in late prehistoric times by the Timbisha in the extreme south end around Owens Lake and by the Mono tribe in the central and northern portions of the valley. The Timbisha speak the Timbisha language, classified in the Numic branch of Uto-Aztecan language family, the closest related languages are Shoshoni and Comanche. The Eastern Mono speak a dialect of the Mono language which is also Numic, the Timbisha presently live in Death Valley at Furnace Creek although most families also have summer homes in the Lone Pine colony. The Eastern Mono live in colonies from Lone Pine to Bishop. Trade between Native Americans of the Owens Valley between coastal tribes such as the Chumash has been indicated by the archaeological record, on May 1,1834, Joseph R. Walker entered Owens Valley at the mouth of Walker Pass. He and his group of 52 men traveled up the valley on their way back to the Humboldt Sink, fremont named the Owens valley, river and lake for Richard Owens, one of his guides. Camp Independence was established on Oak Creek nearby modern Independence, California, on July 4,1862, from 1942 to 1945 during World War II, the first Japanese American Internment camp operated in the valley at Manzanar near Independence, California
34.
Panamint Valley
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The northern end of the valley is in Death Valley National Park and Inyo County, California. The valley lies in a direction, and stretches from the Panamint Dunes in the north to the Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake in San Bernardino County in the south. The valley is approximately 65 miles in length, and is more than 10 miles wide in the Hall Canyon area, the ghost town of Ballarat is located in the Panamint Valley about three miles east of Trona Road, near Happy Canyon. The former Epsom Salts Monorail crossed the valley on a wooden trestle, a radar station is located near the town of Ballarat at the south end of the valley. Multiple sites along SR190, which crosses the north part of the valley, Barker Ranch, the last hideout of Charles Manson and the site at which he was arrested in 1969, is located at the southern end of the valley off Goler Canyon Road. Most of the Barker Family Ranch was burned down in 2009, the valley is an internally drained endorheic basin and its central salt flat/hardpan can contain an ephemeral lake, like it did after unusually heavy rains in the spring of 2005. During pluvial periods of the Pleistocene, inflow from a chain of streams, the airspace over Panamint Valley is part of the U. S. militarys vast R-2508 Special Use Airspace Complex. The airspace is used by military aircraft from Nellis AFB, Edwards AFB, NAWS China Lake. R-2508 Panamint MOA/ATCAA Operating Procedures Desert. usa, Panamint Valley Areas of Interest
35.
Saline Valley, California
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Saline Valley is a large, deep, and arid valley in the northern Mojave Desert of California. Most of it became a part of Death Valley National Park when the expanded in 1994. This area had previously administered by the BLM. It is located northwest of Death Valley proper, south of Eureka Valley, and east of the Owens Valley. The valleys lowest elevations are about 1,000 feet and it lies in the shadow of the 14, 000-foot Sierra Nevada Range, plus the 11. A large dry lake occupies the center of the valley, the west end of the lake supports a salt marsh, which contains a variety of plant and animal life. The marsh is fed by a stream from Hunter Canyon. North of the lake is an area of low sand dunes. There are a number of hot springs in the northeast corner of the valley, the water temperature at the source of these springs averages at 107 °F. Saline Valley is a closed or endorheic basin, if filled with water it would be over 4000 feet deep, form a lake with a surface area of roughly 500 square miles, and hold approximately 500,000,000 acre feet of water. Saline Valley Road is a maintained dirt road running north-south through the length of the valley. From SR168 in the north to SR190 in the south, it is 95 miles long and it goes through two mountain passes, the Inyo Mountains in the north, and the Nelson Range in the south. The northern pass is higher, but is maintained and is about 20 miles closer to the hot springs. One or both passes may be closed during the due to snow, ice, or washouts. The Road Closed signs are often left in place year-round in an attempt to deter motorists who may not realize how treacherous the road is and it is not a Park Service Road, and Inyo County is responsible for its maintenance. Officially, the length of the road is passable by non-4WD vehicles. High ground clearance and mounted full-size spare tires are strongly recommended, Saline Valley was inhabited in late prehistoric times by the Timbisha. The village in Saline Valley was known as Koon, which referred to the valley as a whole
36.
Eureka Valley (Inyo County)
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Eureka Valley is located in Inyo County, in eastern California in the southwestern United States. It is approximately 28 miles long and up to 10 miles wide, the southern section of the valley is now part of the Death Valley National Park - Death Valley itself lies just to the southeast. To the north is Deep Springs Valley, Fish Lake Valley, to the east the Last Chance Range rises over 5500 feet above the valley floor. To the west are the Saline Mountains, and to the southwest lies Saline Valley, Eureka Valley is a graben, like most other lower-lying areas of the Basin and Range Province. An improved gravel road crosses the valley, connecting the community of Big Pine to the northern Grapevine section of Death Valley, a 10-mile gravel road provides access to the southern end of the valley. More primitive routes exit the valley to the northwest via Soldier Pass, to the northeast via Horse Thief Pass, the valley has two distinguishing features. Its shape alters the wind in such a way as to collect sand near its southern end, also, just to the east of the dunes, the Last Chance Range climbs over 3500 feet as near-vertical cliffs, displaying colorful rock strata. Deep Springs Valley Media related to Eureka Valley at Wikimedia Commons Eureka Sand Dune - Dune Guide
37.
Deep Springs Valley
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Deep Springs Valley is a high desert valley in the Inyo-White Mountains of Inyo County, California. It is east of the Owens Valley and the Sierra Nevada mountain range, California State Route 168 connects it to the Owens and Fish Lake valleys, crossing Westgard Pass to the west and Gilbert Pass to the north. To the northwest lies White Mountain Peak, to the east lies Eureka Valley, connected via Soldier Pass in the Piper Mountain Wilderness, which can be traversed on horseback but not by automobile. Birds, and birdwatchers, flock to the Lake during the spring, surrounding the lake are numerous springs, some artesian, which gave the valley its name. The springs are home to the Deep Springs Black Toad, a species that occurs only in Deep Springs Valley. The population of toads, however, appears to be stable, despite the presence of cattle that graze around the lake during the winter, the intensely folded and clearly visible layers comprise the Cambrian-aged Poleta formation. Several complex fault systems add to the challenge for students to unravel the areas history. During a typical summer one can often find near-established trails leading to the best outcrops, also easily visible at the base of the Inyo Mountains, in the southwestern end of the valley behind Deep Springs Lake, is a sizable dip-slip fault. Researchers showed that the most recent fault scarp had a displacement of 2.7 meters along a 20 km section of the fault. With an estimated area of 345 km2, the event was calculated to have a moment magnitude of 7.0 and was estimated to have occurred about 1,800 years ago. The fault is active, but studies suggest that it slips about every 4000 years. Deep Springs Lake is at 37°16′35″N 118°02′37″W, at 4905 elevation, the lake is intermittently filled and actively precipitating dolomite, understood to rarely occur in such conditions. It is the home of Deep Springs College, a nontraditional two-year liberal arts institution, there are also ruins of an early small mining establishment, White Mountain City, in the northwest corner of the valley
38.
Ecoregion
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An ecoregion is an ecologically and geographically defined area that is smaller than a bioregion, which in turn is smaller than an ecozone. All three of these are less or greater than an ecosystem. Ecoregions cover relatively large areas of land or water, and contain characteristic, the biodiversity of flora, fauna and ecosystems that characterise an ecoregion tends to be distinct from that of other ecoregions. 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, secondly, ecoregion boundaries rarely form abrupt edges, rather, ecotones and mosaic habitats bound them. Thirdly, most ecoregions contain habitats that differ from their assigned biome, biogeographic provinces may originate due to various barriers. Some physical, some climatic and some ocean chemical related, the history of the term is somewhat vague as it was used in many contexts, forest classifications, biome classifications, biogeographic classifications, etc. The concept of ecoregion of Bailey gives more importance to ecological criteria, while the WWF concept gives more importance to biogeography, there is significant, but not absolute, spatial correlation among these characteristics, making the delineation of ecoregions an imperfect science. Such transition zones are called ecotones, Ecoregions can be categorized using an algorithmic approach or a holistic, “weight-of-evidence” approach where the importance of various factors may vary. An example of the approach is Robert Bailey’s work for the U. S. The intended purpose of ecoregion delineation may affect the method used, according to WWF, the boundaries of an ecoregion approximate the original extent of the natural communities prior to any major recent disruptions or changes. WWF has identified 867 terrestrial ecoregions, and approximately 450 freshwater ecoregions across the Earth, the use of the term ecoregion is an outgrowth of a surge of interest in ecosystems and their functioning. In particular, there is awareness of issues relating to spatial scale in the study and it is widely recognized that interlinked ecosystems combine to form a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. The Global 200 is the list of ecoregions identified by WWF as priorities for conservation, Terrestrial ecoregions are land ecoregions, as distinct from freshwater and marine ecoregions. In this context, terrestrial is used to mean of land, WWF ecologists currently divide the land surface of the Earth into 8 major ecozones containing 867 smaller terrestrial ecoregions. The WWF effort is a synthesis of previous efforts to define. Many consider this classification to be decisive, and some propose these as stable borders for bioregional democracy initiatives. The eight terrestrial ecozones follow the major floral and faunal boundaries, identified by botanists and zoologists, ecozone boundaries generally follow continental boundaries, or major barriers to plant and animal distribution, like the Himalayas and the Sahara
39.
Holocene
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The Holocene is the geological epoch that began after the Pleistocene at approximately 11,700 years before present. The term Recent has often used as an exact synonym of Holocene. The Holocene is part of the Quaternary period and its name comes from the Ancient Greek words ὅλος and καινός, meaning entirely recent. It has been identified with the current warm period, known as MIS1, given these, a new term, Anthropocene, is specifically proposed and used informally only for the very latest part of modern history involving significant human impact. It is accepted by the International Commission on Stratigraphy that the Holocene started approximately 11,700 years ago, the epoch follows the Pleistocene and the last glacial period. The Holocene can be subdivided into five time intervals, or chronozones, based on climatic fluctuations, Preboreal, Boreal, Atlantic, Subboreal and they find a general correspondence across Eurasia and North America, though the method was once thought to be of no interest. The scheme was defined for Northern Europe, but the changes were claimed to occur more widely. The periods of the include a few of the final pre-Holocene oscillations of the last glacial period. Paleontologists have not defined any faunal stages for the Holocene, if subdivision is necessary, periods of human technological development, such as the Mesolithic, Neolithic, and Bronze Age, are usually used. However, the time periods referenced by these terms vary with the emergence of those technologies in different parts of the world, climatically, the Holocene may be divided evenly into the Hypsithermal and Neoglacial periods, the boundary coincides with the start of the Bronze Age in Europe. According to some scholars, a division, the Anthropocene, has now begun. Continental motions due to plate tectonics are less than a kilometre over a span of only 10,000 years, however, ice melt caused world sea levels to rise about 35 m in the early part of the Holocene. The sea level rise and temporary land depression allowed temporary marine incursions into areas that are now far from the sea, Holocene marine fossils are known, for example, from Vermont and Michigan. Other than higher-latitude temporary marine incursions associated with depression, Holocene fossils are found primarily in lakebed, floodplain. Holocene marine deposits along low-latitude coastlines are rare because the rise in sea levels during the period exceeds any likely tectonic uplift of non-glacial origin, post-glacial rebound in the Scandinavia region resulted in the formation of the Baltic Sea. The region continues to rise, still causing weak earthquakes across Northern Europe, the equivalent event in North America was the rebound of Hudson Bay, as it shrank from its larger, immediate post-glacial Tyrrell Sea phase, to near its present boundaries. Climate has been stable over the Holocene. It appears that this was influenced by the glacial ice remaining in the Northern Hemisphere until the later date
40.
Refugium (population biology)
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In biology, a refugium, sometimes termed simply a refuge or just a fuge, is a location of an isolated or relict population of a once more widespread species. This isolation can be due to changes, geography, or human activities such as deforestation. Going from west to east, suggested examples include the Franco-Cantabrian region, the Italian and Balkan peninsulas, the Ukrainian LGM refuge, and the Bering Land Bridge. As an example of a locale refugia study, Jürgen Haffer first proposed the concept of refugia to explain the diversity of bird populations in the Amazonian river basin. Haffer suggested that change in the late Pleistocene led to reduced reservoirs of habitable forests in which populations become allopatric. Over time, that led to speciation, populations of the species that found themselves in different refugia evolved differently. As the Pleistocene ended, the arid conditions gave way to the present humid rainforest environment, scholars have since expanded the idea of this mode of speciation and used it to explain population patterns in other areas of the world, such as Africa, Eurasia, and North America. Theoretically, current biogeographical patterns can be used to infer past refugia, if several unrelated species follow concurrent range patterns, moreover, the current distribution of species with narrow ecological requirements tend to be associated with the spatial position of glacial refugia. One can provide an explanation of refugia involving core temperatures. In the northern hemisphere, north-facing sites on hills or mountains, the reverse are sun- or heat-exposed, lower-elevation, south-facing sites, hot sites. Each site becomes a refugium, one as a cold-surviving refugium, canyons with deep hidden areas lead to these separate types of refugia. A concept not often referenced is that of sweepstakes colonization, when a dramatic ecological event occurs, for example a bolide strike, leonard, Neagha and C. Michael Hogan. National Council for Science and the Environment
41.
Eastern California
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Eastern California is a region defined as either the strip to the east of the crest of the Sierra Nevada or as the easternmost counties of California in the United States. Most of Eastern California does not fit the stereotypes of California and is related in culture to southeastern Oregon, northwestern Nevada. Northeastern California is very populated and tends to be politically conservative. Historically, Northeastern California has had ties to Nevada, with the exact boundary between the two states in some dispute. Residents of portions of near Susanville, California, tried to break away from California in 1856, first by declaring themselves part of the Nataqua Territory, the two states further squabbled over ownership of Susanville in 1863. The town of Aurora, Nevada, was temporarily the county seat of both Mono County, California, and Esmeralda County, Nevada, finally, the line between the two states was settled by a survey in 1872. Indeed, the hottest and lowest area in North America lies in Eastern California, geologically, Eastern California is mostly part of the Basin and Range Province, marked by crustal extension, with horsts and grabens. Volcanism is also evident in this region
42.
Atlantic Ocean
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The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the worlds oceans with a total area of about 106,460,000 square kilometres. It covers approximately 20 percent of the Earths surface and about 29 percent of its surface area. It separates the Old World from the New World, the Atlantic Ocean occupies an elongated, S-shaped basin extending longitudinally between Eurasia and Africa to the east, and the Americas to the west. The Equatorial Counter Current subdivides it into the North Atlantic Ocean, in contrast, the term Atlantic originally referred specifically to the Atlas Mountains in Morocco and the sea off the Strait of Gibraltar and the North African coast. The Greek word thalassa has been reused by scientists for the huge Panthalassa ocean that surrounded the supercontinent Pangaea hundreds of years ago. The term Aethiopian Ocean, derived from Ancient Ethiopia, was applied to the Southern Atlantic as late as the mid-19th century, many Irish or British people refer to the United States and Canada as across the pond, and vice versa. The Black Atlantic refers to the role of ocean in shaping black peoples history. Irish migration to the US is meant when the term The Green Atlantic is used, the term Red Atlantic has been used in reference to the Marxian concept of an Atlantic working class, as well as to the Atlantic experience of indigenous Americans. Correspondingly, the extent and number of oceans and seas varies, the Atlantic Ocean is bounded on the west by North and South America. It connects to the Arctic Ocean through the Denmark Strait, Greenland Sea, Norwegian Sea, to the east, the boundaries of the ocean proper are Europe, the Strait of Gibraltar and Africa. In the southeast, the Atlantic merges into the Indian Ocean, the 20° East meridian, running south from Cape Agulhas to Antarctica defines its border. In the 1953 definition it extends south to Antarctica, while in later maps it is bounded at the 60° parallel by the Southern Ocean, the Atlantic has irregular coasts indented by numerous bays, gulfs, and seas. Including these marginal seas the coast line of the Atlantic measures 111,866 km compared to 135,663 km for the Pacific. Including its marginal seas, the Atlantic covers an area of 106,460,000 km2 or 23. 5% of the ocean and has a volume of 310,410,900 km3 or 23. 3%. Excluding its marginal seas, the Atlantic covers 81,760,000 km2 and has a volume of 305,811,900 km3, the North Atlantic covers 41,490,000 km2 and the South Atlantic 40,270,000 km2. The average depth is 3,646 m and the maximum depth, the bathymetry of the Atlantic is dominated by a submarine mountain range called the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. It runs from 87°N or 300 km south of the North Pole to the subantarctic Bouvet Island at 42°S, the MAR divides the Atlantic longitudinally into two halves, in each of which a series of basins are delimited by secondary, transverse ridges. The MAR reaches above 2000 m along most of its length, the MAR is a barrier for bottom water, but at these two transform faults deep water currents can pass from one side to the other
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Lake
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A lake is an area of variable size filled with water, localized in a basin, that is surrounded by land, apart from any river or other outlet that serves to feed or drain the lake. Lakes lie on land and are not part of the ocean, and therefore are distinct from lagoons, Lakes can be contrasted with rivers or streams, which are usually flowing. Most lakes are fed and drained by rivers and streams, natural lakes are generally found in mountainous areas, rift zones, and areas with ongoing glaciation. Other lakes are found in endorheic basins or along the courses of mature rivers, in some parts of the world there are many lakes because of chaotic drainage patterns left over from the last Ice Age. All lakes are temporary over geologic time scales, as they will fill in with sediments or spill out of the basin containing them. The word lake comes from Middle English lake, from Old English lacu, from Proto-Germanic *lakō, cognates include Dutch laak, Middle Low German lāke as in, de, Moorlake, de, Wolfslake, de, Butterlake, German Lache, and Icelandic lækur. Also related are the English words leak and leach, none of these definitions completely excludes ponds and all are difficult to measure. For this reason, simple size-based definitions are used to separate ponds. One definition of lake is a body of water of 2 hectares or more in area, however, others have defined lakes as waterbodies of 5 hectares and above, or 8 hectares and above. Charles Elton, one of the founders of ecology, regarded lakes as waterbodies of 40 hectares or more. The term lake is used to describe a feature such as Lake Eyre. In common usage, many bear names ending with the word pond. One textbook illustrates this point with the following, In Newfoundland, for example, almost every lake is called a pond, whereas in Wisconsin, the majority of lakes on Earth are fresh water, and most lie in the Northern Hemisphere at higher latitudes. Canada, with a drainage system has an estimated 31,752 lakes larger than 3 square kilometres and an unknown total number of lakes. Finland has 187,888 lakes 500 square metres or larger, most lakes have at least one natural outflow in the form of a river or stream, which maintain a lakes average level by allowing the drainage of excess water. Some lakes do not have an outflow and lose water solely by evaporation or underground seepage or both. Many lakes are artificial and are constructed for power generation, aesthetic purposes, recreational purposes, industrial use. Globally, lakes are greatly outnumbered by ponds, of an estimated 304 million standing water bodies worldwide, 91% are 1 hectare or less in area
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Adaptation
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In biology, an adaptation, also called an adaptive trait, is a trait with a current functional role in the life of an organism that is maintained and evolved by means of natural selection. Adaptation refers to both the current state of being adapted and to the evolutionary process that leads to the adaptation. Adaptations enhance the fitness and survival of individuals, organisms face a succession of environmental challenges as they grow and develop and are equipped with an adaptive plasticity as the phenotype of traits develop in response to the imposed conditions. The developmental norm of reaction for any given trait is essential to the correction of adaptation as it affords a kind of insurance or resilience to varying environments. Adaptation is, first of all, a process, to rather be with the animal, an internal parasite can illustrate the distinction, such a parasite may have a very simple bodily structure, but nevertheless the organism is highly adapted to its specific environment. From this we see that adaptation is not just a matter of visible traits, in such parasites critical adaptations take place in the life cycle, however, as a practical term, adaptation often refers to a product, those features of a species which result from the process. Many aspects of an animal or plant can be correctly called adaptations, by using the term adaptation for the evolutionary process, and adaptive trait for the bodily part or function, one may distinguish the two different senses of the word. Adaptation is one of the two processes that explain the diverse species found in biology, such as the different species of Darwins finches. The other process is speciation, caused by geographical isolation or some other mechanism, a favorite example used today to study the interplay of adaptation and speciation is the evolution of cichlid fish in African lakes, where the question of reproductive isolation is much more complex. Adaptation is not always a simple matter where the ideal phenotype evolves for an external environment. An organism must be viable at all stages of its development and this places constraints on the evolution of development, behavior and structure of organisms. However, it is not clear what relatively small should mean, the origin of eukaryotic symbiosis exemplifies a more dramatic example. All adaptations help organisms survive in their ecological niches, the adaptive traits may be structural, behavioral or physiological. Structural adaptations are features of an organism. Behavioral adaptations are composed of inherited behavior chains and/or the ability to learn, behaviors may be inherited in detail, examples, searching for food, mating, vocalizations. Adaptation, then, affects all aspects of the life of an organism, the following definitions are mainly due to Theodosius Dobzhansky. Adaptation is the process whereby an organism becomes better able to live in its habitat or habitats. Adaptedness is the state of being adapted, the degree to which an organism is able to live, an adaptive trait is an aspect of the developmental pattern of the organism which enables or enhances the probability of that organism surviving and reproducing
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Great Basin National Park
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Great Basin National Park is a United States National Park located in White Pine County in east-central Nevada, near the Utah border. The park was established in 1986 and it is most commonly accessed by way of Nevada State Route 488, which is connected to U. S. Routes 6 and 50 by Nevada State Route 487 via the town of Baker. The park derives its name from the Great Basin, the dry, topographically, this area is known as the Basin and Range Province. The park is located approximately 290 miles north of Las Vegas, the park is notable for its groves of ancient bristlecone pines, the oldest known non-clonal organisms, and for the Lehman Caves at the base of 13, 063-foot Wheeler Peak. The peak is home to Wheeler Peak Glacier, which despite claims is much further north than Mount Everest. President Warren G. Harding created Lehman Caves National Monument by presidential proclamation on January 24,1922 and it was designated a national park on October 27,1986. There are a number of developed campsites within the park, as well as excellent back country camping opportunities, adjacent to Great Basin National Park lies the Highland Ridge Wilderness. These two protected areas provide contiguous wildlife habitat and protection to 227.8 square miles of eastern Nevadas basin lands, there are 11 species of conifer trees and over 800 species of plants in Great Basin National Park and the neighboring valleys. The area around the Visitor Center is dominated by such as sagebrush, saltbush, Single-leaf Pinyon. Higher elevations are home to mountain meadows, White Fir, Quaking Aspen, Englemann Spruce, at treeline is an alpine area of low, delicate plants and rocky outcroppings. The oldest non-clonal organism ever discovered, a Great Basin Bristlecone Pine tree at least 5,000 years old and it was cut down in 1964 by a graduate student and U. S. Forest Service personnel for research purposes. It was given the nickname Prometheus, after the figure who stole fire from the gods. There are 61 species of mammals,18 species of reptiles,238 species of birds,2 species of amphibians, and 8 species of fish in Great Basin National Park, mammals An abundance of wildlife has taken advantage of the habitat zones in Great Basin National Park. Jackrabbits, pygmy rabbits, mountain cottontails, ground squirrels, chipmunks, pronghorns, coyotes, kit foxes, and badgers are less common inhabitants. In the more rugged areas on the slopes of mountains and in the areas nearby, cougars, bobcats, marmots, rock squirrels. Other animals that can be found here include elk, mule deer, spotted skunks, shrew, ringtail cats, fish The Bonneville cutthroat trout is the only fish native to Great Basin National Park. It arrived in the mountain waters naturally and was isolated by changing climatic conditions
This article incorporates public domain material from the United States Geological Survey document: Christopher E. Soulard. "Land-Cover Trends of the Central Basin and Range Ecoregion" (PDF).
This article incorporates