Archaeologica.org

Minimalist wrote:I've been through this with Rok before. He has no understanding of American domestic politics.

Well, they're 1) based on the principle of 'winner-takes-all', not on cooperation and compromise, and 2) they are self-serving in the extreme, and 3) they think they're unique. That about sums it up for me, Min. When you take a helicopter view those look remarkably like totalitarian characteristics! Borne out by the ever increasing surveillance society at home, and the bellicose projections abroad.

Obama, or no Obama.

Any more 'understanding' is just misdirection of attention, and smoke & mirrors.

No. It is based on each party trying to play to its "base" while simultaneously trying to attract enough votes from the center to win an election.

kbs2244 wrote: This type of stuff proves that the rain forest is “second growth” trees and the area is far from untouched.

After 7,000 to 2,000 years, a "second growth" forest has a different meaning.

In any case, deforestration does not automatically mean bare hills. Bare hills means poor forestry management,the UK is mainly deforested.

Roy.

Digit wrote:In any case, deforestration does not automatically mean bare hills. Bare hills means poor forestry management

With that statement i agree completely. Almost any drive into the mountains in Nor Cal will come across evidence of several landslides that were caused by clear cutting.

Digit wrote:In any case, deforestration does not automatically mean bare hills. Bare hills means poor forestry management,the UK is mainly deforested.

Get in line!

After 7,000 to 2,000 years, a "second growth" forest has a different meaning.

The good news there (and I agree with you) is that once GW gets rid of all the people the forest will recover quite nicely.

dannan14 wrote: With that statement i agree completely. Almost any drive into the mountains in Nor Cal will come across evidence of several landslides that were caused by clear cutting.

You don't even have to drive that far. Redwoods covered the hills of the East Bay; once harvested, there was nothing to hold the moisture of the fogs, and the landscape dessicated. You can view a "fossil grove" on the Berkeley Campus.

Then there are the Greek Islands and Turkey...

But we're a long way from the landscape and paleoclimates of South America...

Then there are the Greek Islands and Turkey...

'Cos no steps were taken to prevent it EP. I passed a steep slope earlier today in the mountains that has been clear cut, and re-planted.

Roy.

Digit wrote:

Then there are the Greek Islands and Turkey...

'Cos no steps were taken to prevent it EP. I passed a steep slope earlier today in the mountains that has been clear cut, and re-planted.

Unfortunately that is a great exception. Consider the skiing slopes in the Alps* and the Rockies. When you look down on them (from a plane) they look like terrible scars in the landscape. That's because they are! The trees have been felled/removed, so the roots die, so they cannot keep the soil together anymore. So, in spring, the soil cannot absorb the snow's (melt)water anymore, and release it gradually, over the course of months. Consequently every year all that meltwater comes down virtually immediately, increasingly causing rivers to flood downstream (I know: I live in the Rhine's delta/floodplain/estuary; it happens every year; worse every year).

* 50 million people go skiing in the Alps every winter. Just imagine the thousands of skiing slopes they need for that.

So you can't have ski slopes and trees. But they could have had trees if the slopes had been handled with that in mind, and even damaged slopes can be recovered, if we want to do so.

Roy.

Digit wrote:So you can't have ski slopes and trees. But they could have had trees if the slopes had been handled with that in mind, and even damaged slopes can be recovered, if we want to do so.

No Roy, they can't. Once the trees are gone, the soils washes away, and the bare rock is exposed. Without soil new trees and other flora cannot take root. Once rock slopes are barren they remain barren forever.

Eh! A couple of observations RS. Our local mountain valleys are ex galacial. Glaciers would have removed everything down to and into the bedrock. Glaciers then withdrew, within historical times these valleys were forested, the deforestation in many cases is down to Sheep grazing.
If they were forested your argument must be incorrect.
Here in the UK re-forestation is the task of the Forestry Commission, they start in the valley and plant as high as possible. As the rock breaks down and washes down it mixes with fallen leaves etc and plants grow. A few years later further trees are planted, and so on up to the local tree line.
They've been doing it since the end of WW1!

Roy.

Digit wrote:Eh! A couple of observations RS. Our local mountain valleys are ex galacial. Glaciers would have removed everything down to and into the bedrock. Glaciers then withdrew, within historical times these valleys were forested, the deforestation in many cases is down to Sheep grazing.
If they were forested your argument must be incorrect.
Here in the UK re-forestation is the task of the Forestry Commission, they start in the valley and plant as high as possible. As the rock breaks down and washes down it mixes with fallen leaves etc and plants grow. A few years later further trees are planted, and so on up to the local tree line.
They've been doing it since the end of WW1!

(Accents mine)

Yup, fallen leaves and dead flora transform into 'humus', which is of course a fertile basis for new flora growth. IN THE VALLEY, NOT ON SLOPES. After all it washes down from the slopes, so humus does not build up on those slopes. But (only) in the valley.

The only way those slopes can be reforested is if they get covered with a thick layer of humus again first. That will happen only if those slopes become valleys, or (relatively) flat land first. Of course that can happen, but it can happen only over the course of (dozens or even hundreds of) millions of years, as a result of geological/tectonic movement.

There is literally no way 'we' will be able to reforest those slopes in a million years!

Apparently Britain became forested in 700 yrs! And as I pointed out the trees do advance up hill as the humus is trapped by the first row of trees. The forestry Commision was set up in 1919 for that purpose.
Here's an example for you, there many here in the UK...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Greylock

or

http://www.springerlink.com/index/n4821377n3247425.pdf

it maybe slow but Nature doesn't run to a clock.

Roy.