Northern New York

Map of Selected Regions in New York

Blue: Franklin County
Orange: Essex County
Green: Fort Drum (Jefferson County)

Climographs

Soil

Franklin County

Source: websoilsurvey.nrcs.usda.gov

Essex County

Source: websoilsurvey.nrcs.usda.gov

Jefferson County

Source: websoilsurvey.nrcs.usda.gov

Description:

New York is a vast state with many neighbors, including: New Jersey, Vermont, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and even Canada. This diversity allow extends into the state itself, the state being home to various types of physical environments. Before going to New York, I always thought of it having one of the biggest cities in the United States and did not think much about how much of the outdoors the state had to offer. One of the biggest regions is located in central to northern New York, a place called Adirondack Park. This area has many different ponds, lakes, mountains, valleys, and more.

From this area in New York, I chose to focus on Franklin County and Essex County. Franklin County is home to many of the ponds and lakes in this area of New York, and forms lowlands with more vegetation than Essex County. Essex County, while neighboring Franklin, has some of the highest elevations in the area, one of the most being about 5,500 feet high. In Essex you see lesser vegetation than in Franklin. However, while the physical properties and landforms differ in these two regions, the dominant soil type is still fine sandy loam in both. The climates in these regions are roughly the same, but precipitation in Essex County is greater than Franklin slightly.

The last region I chose to focus on was the military base Fort Drum, and more broader Jefferson County. This county is further east than the other two, and is not located in the Adirondack Park. Here the physical environment has been altered by human interactions, and as such the terrain is more flat. The dominant soil type here is silty clay, but it still has some of the fine sandy loam found in the first two regions. The climate here reflects about the same temperature as the other two regions, with a little bit lower temperature in the later half of the year and an overall decrease in precipitation.

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Alabama

Physical Environment Alabama is the fifth most biodiverse state in the US, ranking first among states east of the Mississippi River (Stein 2002). Alabama contains six distinct Level III Ecoregions which are further divided into more specific Level IV Ecoregions; some of these are illustrated in Figure 1 below. I selected the following three locations based on their spatial distribution and their representation of three distinct ecoregions: Red Mountain, Old Cahawba Prairie, and Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) (Figure 1). Figure 1. Map showing three selected locations within Alabama and their corresponding Level III and Level IV Ecoregions. Data source. Climate Overall, Alabama has a humid subtropical climate type. Between my three selected locations, climate does not vary drastically. One notable difference is in mean precipitation of Bon Secour NWR, which has drier periods in the spring and fall relative to wetter winters and very wet summers (particularly in Augu

Shasta National Forest: Biotic Communities and Disturbance Regime

Shasta National Forest's Biotic Communities Western North America Alpine Tundra Conditions Western North America Alpine Tundra (WNA Alpine Tundra) ecosystems are found on mountain ranges along the west coast of North America, including the mid-elevations on Mount Shasta (Billings & Meidinger 2015). This ecosystem is characterized by short growing seasons and long winters with high snowpack. Soils in this ecosystem tend to be shallow, rocky, low in organics, and well drained (Billings & Meidinger 2015) . Plant Communities Plants commonly found in the WNA Alpine Tundra ecosystem on Mount Shasta include wildflowers in the genus Eriogonum , like Sulphur Buckwheat ( Eriogonum umbellatum ), and some trees at lower elevations such as Lodgepole Pine ( Pinus contorta ) (Billings & Meidinger 2015; Anderson 2003; United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) & United States Forest Service (USFS) 2016; USDA & USFS 2014) . Sulphur Buckwheat. Source . Sulphur Buckwheat&#

The Gauley River: Stressors and Management

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GEOG 3318 Project: Biogeographic Pattern

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