Transient Landscapes: Insights on a Changing Planet

by Ellen E. Wohl

Overview

Landscape—the unique combination of landforms, plants, animals, and weather that compose any natural place—is inherently transient. Each essay in Transient Landscapes introduces this idea of a constantly metamorphosing global landscape, revealing how to see the ubiquity of landscape transience, both that which results through Earth’s natural environmental and climatological processes and that which comes from human intervention.

The essays are grouped by type of environmental change: long-term, large-scale transformation driven by geologic forces such as tectonic uplift and volcanism; natural variability at shorter time scales, such as seasonal flooding; and modifications resulting from human activities, such as timber harvest, land drainage, and pollution. Each essay is set in a unique geographic location—including such diverse places as New Zealand, Northern California, Costa Rica, and the Scottish Highlands—and is largely drawn from Wohl’s personal experience researching in the field.

A combination of travel writing, nature writing, and science writing, Transient Landscapes is a beautiful and thoughtful journey through the natural world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781607323686
Publisher:	University Press of Colorado
Publication date:	06/01/2015
Edition description:	1
Pages:	248
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.10(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Ellen E. Wohl teaches geology at Colorado State University. She is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union and the Geological Society of America and a Fulbright Fellow. She has received the G. K. Gilbert Award from the Association of American Geographers and the Kirk Bryan Award from the Geological Society of America and has written nine books including  Wide Rivers Crossed  and Island of Grass.

Table of Contents

Of Landscapes and Transience 1

Solid as a Rock? Geological Transience Out Far and In Deep 9

Landscapes on the Edge

Balance of Power: Camp Creek, New Zealand 15

Facing the Subduction Zone: The Lost Coast of Northern California 21

Himalaya: The Weather Makers 25

Tortured Landscape: Mount Unzen, Japan 29

Paradox: Sechura Desert, Western Peru 35

Hell, 100 Years Later: Katmai National Park, Alaska 39

Juxtapositions of Violence: Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, Arizona 45

Interior Landscapes 49

Buckeye Creek Cave, West Virginia: What Lies Beneath 51

Stepped Landscape: Augrabies Falls National Park, South Africa 55

Islands of Rock: Kakadu National Park, Australia 61

Retreating Ice: Mackenzie River, Canada 65

Time and the Rivers Flowing 71

In Transit: La Selva Biological Station, Costa Rica 73

Summer's Abundance: Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Alaska 77

Survival Strategies: Gates of the Arctic National Park, Alaska 83

Differing Scales of Transience: Wulik River, Alaska 89

Transient Rivers: Bungle Bungle 93

Amazon I Flood Pulse of the World's Greatest River 97

Amazon II Várzea of the Rio Napo 103

Amazon III Igapó of the Rio Ampiyacu 109

Black Water Swamp in Autumn: Congaree National Park, South Carolina 115

Flowing Rivers: Missouri River, Montana 119

Negev Desert, Israel 123

Motion and Fixity: Shortgrass Prairie, Northeastern Colorado 127

Seven Billion and Counting 131

Terra Nova: Hawai'i 133

Old-Growth Forest Stream, Colorado Front Range 139

Vernal Pond, Northeastern Ohio 143

Watershed: Upper Rio Chagres, Panama 147

Refuge: Coweeta Forest, North Carolina 153

Altering the River's Pulse: North Fork Poudre River, Colorado 157

Rivers and Oceans: Broome, Australia 163

Beaver Meadow, Rocky Mountain National Park 167

Twilight of the Mountain Glaciers: Sermiligâaq Fjord, Greenland 173

Deep, Dark Forest: Temperate Rain Forest of Northwestern Montana 179

Vanishing Wonderland: Great Barrier Reef, Australia 183

Rio Pequeno? Big Bend National Park, Texas 187

Rannoch Moor, Scottish Highlands 191

Wild Gardens: The Moorlands of Northern Britain 195

Missing Pieces: Italian Dolomites 199

Shrinking Ecosystem: Kruger National Park, South Africa 205

Y2K in the That Desert, India 211

Mountain Pine Beetles in the Colorado Front Range 217

Living with Transience 221

Selected References 225

Index 235

Editorial Reviews

"Combining scientific information with an accessible writing style, Ellen Wohl, PhD, gives the readers an understanding of our planet's geologic and geographic changes, with descriptions of each representative location you will visit with her. For nonscientific readers like this reviewer, the experience will be an epiphany, and you will probably find yourself rereading individual sections to savor them more fully later."
—Colorado Central Magazine


"This is not a science book per se. Rather it is a book that shows how an earth scientist brings into focus the many subtle changes affecting natural systems. The landscapes readers encounter through Wohl's book will prompt them to experience and value the natural world themselves."
—CHOICE

From the Publisher