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Sods (other)
Sods is a term used in the Allegheny Mountains of eastern West Virginia for a mountain top meadow or bog, in an area that is otherwise generally forested. The term is similar (perhaps identical) to that of a "Appalachian balds, grass bald", a more widespread designation applied throughout the central and southern Appalachia, Appalachian region. The best known example of a sods is Dolly Sods Wilderness, Dolly Sods, a federally designated National Wilderness Preservation System, wilderness area in Tucker County, West Virginia and popular destination for recreationalists. Other examples include Nelson Sods (Pendleton County, West Virginia, Pendleton County) and Baker Sods (Randolph County, West Virginia, Randolph County). Ecology West Virginia University botanist Earl Lemley Core, Earl L. Core addressed the origin of the "sods" in 1973: How did it happen that these grassy tracts were originally [prior to white settlement] treeless, when all the surrounding areas were covered with tr ...
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North Fork Mountain - Nelson Sods
North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating direction or geography. Etymology The word ''north'' is related to the Old High German ''nord'', both descending from the Proto-Indo-European unit *''ner-'', meaning "left; below" as north is to left when facing the rising sun. Similarly, the other cardinal directions are also related to the sun's position. The Latin word ''borealis'' comes from the Greek '' boreas'' "north wind, north", which, according to Ovid, was personified as the wind-god Boreas, the father of Calais and Zetes. ''Septentrionalis'' is from ''septentriones'', "the seven plow oxen", a name of ''Ursa Major''. The Greek ἀρκτικός (''arktikós'') is named for the same constellation, and is the source of the English word ''Arctic''. Other languages have other derivations. For example, in Lezgian, ''kefer'' can mean bot ...
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Grantsville, West Virginia
Grantsville is a town in Calhoun County, West Virginia, United States. The population was 482 at the 2020 census. It is the county seat of Calhoun County. The town was established along the Little Kanawha River in 1865 and named for Ulysses S. Grant. Grantsville is home to Wayne Underwood Park, which includes a walking trail, and to the annual West Virginia Wood Festival. Geography Grantsville is located at (38.922921, −81.094920). According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of , of which is land and is water. Demographics 2010 census As of the census of 2010, there were 561 people, 262 households, and 140 families living in the town. The population density was . There were 303 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the town was 98.9% White, 0.2% African American, 0.4% Native American, 0.4% Asian, and 0.2% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 0.2% of the population. There were 262 house ...
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Ecoregions
An ecoregion (ecological region) or ecozone (ecological zone) is an ecologically and geographically defined area that is smaller than a bioregion, which in turn is smaller than a biogeographic realm. Ecoregions cover relatively large areas of land or water, and contain characteristic, geographically distinct assemblages of natural communities and species. The biodiversity of flora, fauna and ecosystems that characterise an ecoregion tends to be distinct from that of other ecoregions. In theory, biodiversity or conservation ecoregions are relatively large areas of land or water where the probability of encountering different species and communities at any given point remains relatively constant, within an acceptable range of variation (largely undefined at this point). Three caveats are appropriate for all bio-geographic mapping approaches. Firstly, no single bio-geographic framework is optimal for all taxa. Ecoregions reflect the best compromise for as many taxa as possi ...
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Landforms
A landform is a natural or anthropogenic land feature on the solid surface of the Earth or other planetary body. Landforms together make up a given terrain, and their arrangement in the landscape is known as topography. Landforms include hills, mountains, canyons, and valleys, as well as shoreline features such as bays, peninsulas, and seas, including submerged features such as mid-ocean ridges, volcanoes, and the great ocean basins. Physical characteristics Landforms are categorized by characteristic physical attributes such as elevation, slope, orientation, stratification, rock exposure and soil type. Gross physical features or landforms include intuitive elements such as berms, mounds, hills, ridges, cliffs, valleys, rivers, peninsulas, volcanoes, and numerous other structural and size-scaled (e.g. ponds vs. lakes, hills vs. mountains) elements including various kinds of inland and oceanic waterbodies and sub-surface features. Mountains, hills, plateaux, and pl ...
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Bogs Of West Virginia
A bog or bogland is a wetland that accumulates peat as a deposit of dead plant materials often mosses, typically sphagnum moss. It is one of the four main types of wetlands. Other names for bogs include mire, mosses, quagmire, and muskeg; alkaline mires are called fens. A baygall is another type of bog found in the forest of the Gulf Coast states in the United States.Watson, Geraldine Ellis (2000) ''Big Thicket Plant Ecology: An Introduction'', Third Edition (Temple Big Thicket Series #5). University of North Texas Press. Denton, Texas. 152 pp. Texas Parks and Wildlife. Ecological Mapping systems of Texas: West Gulf Coastal Plain Seepage Swamp and Baygall'. Retrieved 7 July 2020 They are often covered in heath or heather shrubs rooted in the sphagnum moss and peat. The gradual accumulation of decayed plant material in a bog functions as a carbon sink. Bogs occur where the water at the ground surface is acidic and low in nutrients. In contrast to fens, they derive most of t ...
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Monongahela National Forest
The Monongahela National Forest is a national forest located in the Allegheny Mountains of eastern West Virginia, USA. It protects over of federally managed land within a proclamation boundary that includes much of the Potomac Highlands Region and portions of 10 counties. The Monongahela National Forest includes some major landform features such as the Allegheny Front and the western portion of the Ridge-and-valley Appalachians. Within the forest boundaries lie some of the highest mountain peaks in the state, including the highest, Spruce Knob (4,863 ft). Spruce Knob is also the highest point in the Allegheny Mountains. Approximately 75 tree species are found in the forest. Almost all of the trees are a second growth forest, grown back after the land was heavily cutover around the start of the 20th century. Species for which the forest is important include red spruce (''Picea rubens''), balsam fir (''Abies balsamea''), and mountain ash (''Sorbus americana''). The Mo ...
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Natural History Of West Virginia
Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans are part of nature, human activity is often understood as a separate category from other natural phenomena. The word ''nature'' is borrowed from the Old French ''nature'' and is derived from the Latin word ''natura'', or "essential qualities, innate disposition", and in ancient times, literally meant "birth". In ancient philosophy, ''natura'' is mostly used as the Latin translation of the Greek word ''physis'' (φύσις), which originally related to the intrinsic characteristics of plants, animals, and other features of the world to develop of their own accord. The concept of nature as a whole, the physical universe, is one of several expansions of the original notion; it began with certain core applications of the word φύσις by pre-Socr ...
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Community Ecology
In ecology, a community is a group or association of populations of two or more different species occupying the same geographical area at the same time, also known as a biocoenosis, biotic community, biological community, ecological community, or life assemblage. The term community has a variety of uses. In its simplest form it refers to groups of organisms in a specific place or time, for example, "the fish community of Lake Ontario before industrialization". Community ecology or synecology is the study of the interactions between species in communities on many spatial and temporal scales, including the distribution, structure, abundance, demography, and interactions between coexisting populations. The primary focus of community ecology is on the interactions between populations as determined by specific genotypic and phenotypic characteristics. Community ecology also takes into account abiotic factors that influence species distributions or interactions (e.g. annual tem ...
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Appalachian Bogs
Appalachian bogs are boreal or hemiboreal ecosystems, which occur in many places in the Appalachian Mountains, particularly the Allegheny and Blue Ridge subranges. Though popularly called bogs, many of them are technically fens. Natural history After the Pleistocene ice ages, species and ecosystems that had shifted southward often survived in local refugia. As a result, cold-adapted ecosystems, such as bogs, remain as far south as East Tennessee and Western North Carolina. Development of land has greatly reduced both the number and acreage of the bogs in North Carolina. Bog ecosystems evolved in humid cold temperate regions and are generally ombrotrophic which means the system is dependent on precipitation for moisture and nutrient inputs. Shady Valley bogs Situated between Holston Mountain and the Iron Mountains, the community of Shady Valley, Tennessee, once contained an estimated 10,000 acres (40 km²) of cranberry bogs. In recent years, The Nature Conservancy has ...
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McClain Printing Co
The McClain Printing Company (MPC) is a printing company specializing in books of West Virginia history and lore. The company was incorporated in 1958 in Parsons, West Virginia as an outgrowth of the local weekly newspaper, the '' Parsons Advocate''. History In 1943, Ken and Faith Reynolds McClain had bought the ''Parsons Advocate'' which had been founded in 1896. Mr. McClain was approached around 1957 by West Virginia University professors who feared that early local West Virginia histories would be lost if they were not reprinted. In 1958, the newspaper undertook the reprinting of Alexander Scott Withers’ classic history, ''Chronicles of Border Warfare'', as its first venture in book publishing. When McClain retired in the early 1970s, his son-in-law and daughter, George and Mariwyn Smith, moved to Parsons. George took over the printing company and Mariwyn the newspaper. When George Smith retired in 1997, son Kenneth E. Smith became the third generation to operate the company. ...
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Danthonia Compressa
''Danthonia compressa'' is a species of grass known by the common names mountain oatgrass, flattened oatgrass, and slender oatgrass. Distribution This bunchgrass is native to eastern North America, where it can be found in eastern Canada and the Eastern United States. In the southern part of its range it is restricted to the high elevations of the Appalachian Mountains.Carey, Jennifer H. 1994''Danthonia compressa''.In: Fire Effects Information System, nline U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Fire Sciences Laboratory. Description ''Danthonia compressa'' is a perennial bunchgrass with thin, compressed stems reaching up to about 80 centimeters in length, sometimes lying decumbent. Most of the leaves are located at the bases of the stems. The inflorescence is a panicle of up to 17 spikelets, with two or three per branch. The spikelet has a short, bent awn. The grass reproduces by seed and by sprouting new stems from buds on the stem bas ...
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