Fire and vegetation history of the Jemez Mountains

Allen, Craig

Historic patterns of fire occurrence and vegetation change in the Jemez Mountains of northern New Mexico have been described in detail by using multiple lines of evidence. Data sources include old aerial and ground-based photographs, historic records, charcoal deposits from bogs, fire -scarred trees (Fig. 1), tree-ring reconstructions of precipitation, and field sampling of vegetation and soils. The forests and woodlands that cloak the southwestern uplands provide the most extensive and detailed regional-scale network of fire history data available in the world (Swetnam and Baisan, 1996; Swetnam et al., 1999; Allen, in press). Modern climate/vegetation patterns basically developed in the Southwest about 11,000-8,000 years before present. Sample sites Substantial fire activity apparently emerged in the Southwest during that time, as evidenced by the contemporaneous and rapid spread of frre-adapted ponderosa pine forests across the region (Anderson, 1989), and by the abundant charcoal deposits found in lake and bog sediments (Brunner-Jass, 1999; Weng and Jackson, 1999). Charcoal sediments from Alamo Bog in the central Jemez Mountains indicate essentially continuous fire activity extending back almost 9,000 years (Brunner-Jass, 1999).