Wildlife Camera Photos - Winter 2015-2016

These photos were taken by a network of motion-triggered wildlife cameras in the Manzano Mountains, New Mexico:

Bobcat

Snow

Turkey

Coyote

Two Soils from the Manzano Mountains

Overview SOIL 1

Apparently frost -heaving has raised very weak physical (WP) crust-mounds.

Closeup of a crust mound:  The surface has been softened and the top centimeter has filled in with fine sediments.  This top layer actually has more structure than the frost-heaved material below it, which readily crumbles into its constituent soil particles.  Note the plant root, at top center of the photo, growing in the fine sediment layer.

Where litter is present, but too discontinuous to form duff, the action of frost heaving rapidly incorporates pine and juniper litter into the mineral horizon.

Overview SOIL 2

Some areas have much more biological crust than others.  In these photos, the blue grama grass Bouteloua gracilis (BOGR) is more abundant with denser cryptobiotic crust.  The darkened biological soil crust (BSC) consists of free-living blue-green algae such as Nostoc. 

Compact SP (strong physical) crust with roots and moisture evident underneath.  These cracked peds come up in 5-8 inch radius plates.  Note how different this crust is from the previous “frost-heaved” crust.  This crust has significant structure to it and doesn’t immediately crumble into constituent particles.  

Riparian Restoration in a Time of Changing Hydrographs: La Jencia 2008-2014

A talk presented at the 2015 Tamarisk Coalition Conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
 

BEFORE and AFTER views of the proposed Rosemont Mine

The Final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the proposed Rosemont Mine was released Nov. 29th.  In addition to containing thousands of pages detailing the effects of this open pit copper mine on the ecology of the Santa Rita mountains, the report also contains a number of simulated "before-and-after" images of the mine.  

BEFORE:

This view shows the Santa Rita mountains as they appear today.

AFTER:

This view shows the Santa Rita mountains after the Rosemont open-pit mine ("preferred alternative").

BEFORE:

This is another view of the Santa Rita mountains as they appear today.

AFTER:

This is the same view after the construction of the Rosemont open pit mine ("barrel alternative").

BEFORE:

This satellite image shows the site of the proposed Rosemont mine, situated in undisturbed rolling hills on National Forest land.  Grasslands on south- and west-facing slopes give way to oak woodlands on north- and east-facing slopes.  This view is about 5 miles on a side.

AFTER:

This satellite image (taken at the same scale) shows the nearby Sierrita Mine sprawling over the foothills of the Sierrita mountains.  The proposed Rosemont mine would not cover the entire footprint of the gargantuan Sierrita Mine because of the proposed use of compressed tailings piles.  However, in both mines, the main  "pit" is about a mile on a side.

Gaillardia grandiflora

Photomicrograph of an Asteraceae stigma with yellow pollen grains attached.
From this website.

HDR Photography is Awesome

HDR, or High Dynamic Range Photography, is the way the world is supposed to look. 

source.

Christmas in Orlando, FL

AZ twenty one zero

A trip to wildflower heaven in the Arizona desert!

Rain in the Sonoran Desert

Great Sand Dunes Vegetation Mapping

Merlin Enthralled (Richard Wilbur)

From GRSA

In a while they rose and went out aimlessly riding.
Leaving their drained cups on the table round.
Merlin, Merlin, their hearts cried, where are you hiding?
In all the world was no unnatural sound.

From GRSA

Mystery watched them riding glade by glade;
They saw it darkle from under leafy brows;
But leaves were all its voice, and squirrels made
An alien fracas in the ancient boughs.

From GRSA

Once by a lake-edge something made them stop.
Yet what they found was the thumping of a frog,
Bugs skating on the shut water-top,
Some hairlike algae bleaching on a log.

From GRSA

Gawen thought for a moment that he heard
A whitehorn breathe "Niniane." That Siren's daughter
Rose in a fort of dreams and spoke the word
"Sleep", her voice like dark diving water;

From GRSA

And Merlin slept, who had imagined her
Of water-sounds and the deep unsoundable swell
A creature to bewitch a sorcerer,
And lay there now within her towering spell.

Slowly the shapes of searching men and horses
Escaped him as he dreamt on that high bed:
History died; he gathered in its forces;
The mists of time condensed in the still head

From GRSA

Until his mind, as clear as mountain water,
Went raveling toward the deep transparent dream
Who bade him sleep. And then the Siren's daughter
Received him as the sea receives a stream.

From GRSA

Fate would be fated; dreams desire to sleep.
This the forsaken will not understand.
Arthur upon the road began to weep
And said to Gawen, "Remember when this hand

Once haled a sword from stone; now no less strong
It cannot dream of such a thing to do."
Their mail grew quainter as they clopped along.
The sky became a still and woven blue.

From GRSA

Hiking the Organ Mountains near Las Cruces, NM

Light on the Dunes

Santa Fe: Land of the Prius and Suburu

How long after sunset does the Green Flash occur?

Have you seen the shimmering ghost clouds that effervesce in the black sky an hour or more after sunset?

Some say they are a hundred, a thousand miles up.

The sky definitely shades in every color of the rainbow, red sunsets fade to green and then to blue and black.

Stars cover more than their 180 degree share of the heavens.

The Jemez and the Ortiz and the Sandia and the Sangre de Cristo.

The mountains here create their own weather; each ranch has its own weather.

Quiet city of polite dogs and narrow walled streets; enclosed or exclosed? You can't tell if you're inside or outside the brown adobe walls.
The billboards all advertise watches and jewelry, while cows chew cholla for miles around.
In Santa Fe.