A 5000-year record of disturbance and vegetation change in riparian forests of the Queets River, Washington, U.S.A.
Greenwald DN and Brubaker LB. 2001. A 5000-year record of disturbance and vegetation change in riparian forests of the Queets River, Washington, U.S.A.. Canadian Journal of Forest Research. 31:1375-1385
From the Abstract: "We used fossil pollen, charcoal, and sediment stratigraphy in three small hlllows to investigate disturbance events and changes in the composition of riparian forests on a small section of the Queets River floodplain, Olympic Peninsula, Washington. The records ranged in age from approximately 500 years at two sites 300 and 550 m from the river, to 5000 years at a site 800 m from the river. Approximately 400-600 years BP, the two sites nearest the river were either inundated by a very large flood or covered by the active channel, which would have occupied a substantially different position from its present course. Following inundation or channel movement, the pollen record suggests that Alnus rubra Bong., the primary mesic forest colonizer in the Pacific Northwest, increased and was then replaced by Picea sitchensis (Bong.) Carriere and Tsuga heterophylla (Raf.) Sarg. At the site farthest from the river, two fires occurred within the last 4500 years."
- Type
- Journal Article
- Authors
- Greenwald, D.; Brubaker, Linda
- Units
- OLYM
- Keywords
- FIRE, fossil pollen, Queets River Watershed, riparian forest, Stratigraphy, Vegetation Change