Mousam Way Land Trust
"Preserving special places for plants wildlife and the enjoyment of present and future generations"
Category: Out in the Woods
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GLOBAL OCEAN CONVEYOR BELT: Changes due to Global Warming
Sea water along the equatorial area gets heated by the sun, and the warmed water forms a stratification layer above the colder lower water. Eastern Trade Winds caused by Earth’s rotation and atmospheric temperatures push this water layer, creating the Global Ocean Conveyor Belt (GOCB). Part of this GOCB is The Gulf Stream. The warm
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Our Climate in 60 Years
Most folks have difficulty relating to the scientists’ warnings relating to climate change due to global warming. A University of Maryland study, with funding from National Science Foundation and U.S. Geological Survey, attempts to clarify these temperature changes. The image above shows our climate just a short 60 years from now, if our governmental policies
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The Natural History of Deering Pond
by Gordon S. Johnston, Professor of Biology, Nasson College, August, 1973 Updated November, 2019 Introduction I first saw the pond in the company of students John Holzapfel and Sidney Korn on a cold January morning in 1966. It was an impressive introduction for the ice was groaning. Strain cracks were streaking across
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A Short History of Deering Pond
Various glacial actions carved a basin into ancient bedrock. About 14,000 years ago, meltwater from the last retreating glacier lined this basin with “rock flour”, a fine-grained silt made from the glaciers grinding away at the bedrock and suspended in the runoff. As the water collected in the basin, the silt settled, forming a layer
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Shifting Baseline Syndrome
Baby Boomers, Gen-X’ers, Millennials, Gen-Z’ers are terms describing generational groups. Boomers frequently heard the singing of the whip-o-will, enjoyed streets lined with elm trees, and catching brookies in local streams. Gen-X’ers witnessed Dutch Elm devastate their streets; few Millennials are found who’ve heard the whip-o-will’s singing; the Gen-Z’ers’ brook trout have disappeared from their local
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The Carbon Cycle & The 6th Extinction
The Carbon Cycle ( Go here for interactive display of above illustration.) At the beginning of the Archean Eon 4 billion years ago, life emerged upon Earth in a process called abiogenesis; ie., “origin of life”. Several evolutionary processes at the molecular level of increasing complexity formed various chemicals in the early ocean, which led
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The Monarch Chrysalis
“When the caterpillar is a full grown fifth instar caterpillar it is ready to molt the fifth time to become a pupa, or chrysalis. The caterpillar will begin to wander until it finds an appropriate place to create its chrysalis. It will lay down a silk mat, like it has every time that it has molted
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NEW ENGLAND STONE WALLS
In 1939, mining engineer Oliver Bowles estimated 259,000 miles of stone walls have been built in New England. Damage from theft, strip-mining for commercial sale, and demolition for housing construction has left about 100,000 miles, according to the Stone Wall Initiative, https://stonewall.uconn.edu/# (from which most of this entry is gleaned). Re-building these iconic land forms
Mousam Way Land Trust 