The Microbiome

This is probably the best article about the microbiome. (Economist.com)

Vegetation Map on the NC Outer Banks

Lion's Mane Mushroom!

Harvesting a Lion's Mane (Hericium erinaceus) mushroom growing on a dead tree.   We found a number of these delicious (tastes like parmesian to me) mushrooms growing around North Carolina this Fall...

Two Poems

rip rap stabilization
concrete weirs and check dams
cross-vanes, rock vanes, and double wing deflectors
sediment transport and Q analysis
j-hook vanes

vegetated "coir logs" 




IDAHOENSIS


learn to love and hate...at once
a willow thicket
bicycling
hot UV sunlight
Idaho



summit,

at the nadir of the valley
hunters and fishers line your sedge banks
interpersed with willows


Pahsimeroi,

your cliff wall and bed were broken
down by humans, by analytical measurement
(into 4097-millimeter pebbles)
you tried to sweep us downstream, like dirt
lodged in crevices; we crimped along, three legged
with external bladders and strapped-on electronics

Wild Horse,

flowing wide from the mouth of Mustang and Hyndman
sweeping a perfect glacial valley
 clear of rockfall;
too much to move

Meridian,

HDR Photography is Awesome

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

source.

Idaho Fires at night

For more night satellite imagery.

Solar Insolation in the West

Plant OR Animal Distributions

BOMAP has the best plant distribution maps, by county.

Sphenosciadium capitellatum:

The GAP program has the best vertebrate distribution maps (modeled).

American Pika (Ochotona princeps):

Apparently, there are ticks, everywhere

Best resource on identifying ticks:
http://www.cdc.gov/ticks/geographic_distribution.html

Idaho Forest Fires

View of the Halstead fire in the Salmon-Challis National Forest on July 31st from SR-21.

Summer convective thunderstorms add only a small amount to the water budget of the Northern Rockies, and the fire season here typically picks up when evaporation greatly exceeds precipitation in the latter half of the summer.

Percent of normal precipitation, June 21st to August 21st:

from http://water.weather.gov/precip/

2012 has been a dry summer, and there are currently three major forest fires burning in central Idaho (from north to south): the Mustang Complex that grew out of the uncontainable Chrandal Creek Fire, the Halstead Fire Northwest of Stanely, ID, and the Trinity Ridge Fire Northwest of Anderson Ranch Resevoir and Pine, ID. This image from August 10th clearly shows the smoke plumes from these three megafires, which have each burned nearly 100,000 acres of forest so far, with no end in sight.

from http://activefiremaps.fs.fed.us/

Craters of the Moon National Monument lavafields are visible in the lower right corner, Boise is in the lower left, Lake Cascade and McCall are in the center left, and Montana is just visible in the upper right.