Long-term Fire History from Sedimentary Charcoal Analysis: the Wildcat Lake and Glenmire Sites in Point Reyes National Seashore, California
Anderson RS. 2001. Long-term Fire History from Sedimentary Charcoal Analysis: the Wildcat Lake and Glenmire Sites in Point Reyes National Seashore, California. Center for Environmental Sciences & Educations, & Quaternary Sciences Program, Northern Arizona University. Flagstaff, AZ 86011
The relationship between fire occurrence, climate change, vegetation composition and human impact has attracted considerable interest from a wide variety of professionals. As landscapes have become increasingly fragmented and modified by human activities, and regions of "natural vegetation" have become smaller and more rare, the importance of paleoecological research has increased for determining former vegetation patterns and fire regimes. Retrospective studies conducted by paleoecologists are becoming a critical resource for land managers in determination of appropriate strategies to restore "natural" vegetation to National Parks, and re-introduce natural processes such as fire into locations modified by recent human impacts and fire exclusion policies. The present study was initiated with fieldwork in the fall of 1998. We collected two sediment cores from the area. Wildcat Lake, a small landslide lake along the coast largely surrounded by coastal chaparral and scrub, yielded a nearly 11-meter sediment core that contains a ca. 3, I 00-year record of vegetation and disturbance. The G lenmire site, more inland and located within the Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) - Redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) Oak (Quercus) forest, yielded a nearly 4-meter core, containing a ca. 7,000-year record. Initial studies of these two cores showed that pollen preservation was very good and charcoal particles were abundant in both records. We did not attempt to determine the vegetation history in this part of the project. However, in terms of the fire history of the Peninsula, analysis of the charcoal particle stratigraphy has provided us with a unique opportunity to reconstruct the longterm fire history of two very different vegetation types within the Point Reyes National Seashore.
- Type
- Unpublished Report
- Authors
- Anderson, R.
- Date of Issue
- 2001-12
- Publisher
- Center for Environmental Sciences & Educations, & Quaternary Sciences Program, Northern Arizona University
- Units
- PORE , SFAN
- Keywords
- climate change, fire, fire ecology, Fire History, Glenmire, paleoecology, plant communities, retrospective, Sedimentary Charcoal Analysis, sedimentary fire history, vegetation, vegetation composition, vegetation history, Wildcat Lake
- Subjects
- Ecological Framework: Landscapes | Fire and Fuel Dynamics | Fire and Fuel Dynamics