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Wyoming Basin Shrub Steppe
The Wyoming Basin shrub steppe ecoregion, within the deserts and xeric shrublands biome, is a shrub steppe in the northwestern United States. Setting This ecoregion is located almost entirely within the western and central portions of Wyoming, but does extend minimally into southeastern Idaho, south-central Montana, north-central Utah, and northwestern Colorado. It is located within multiple high-altitude intermontane basins largely surrounded by various subranges of the Rocky Mountains. These basins are in the rain shadow of the North American Cordillera and as such have an arid to semi-arid climate with long, very cold winters and short, hot summers. Flora The dominant vegetation of this ecoregion is sagebrush (''Artemisia tridentata''), often associated with various ''Agropyron'' species or fescue grass. At its upper altitudinal limit, the shrub steppe grades into the bordering mountain ecoregions, namely the South Central Rockies forests, the Colorado Rockies forests, and t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ephemeral
Ephemerality (from the Greek word , meaning 'lasting only one day') is the concept of things being transitory, existing only briefly. Academically, the term ephemeral constitutionally describes a diverse assortment of things and experiences, from digital media to types of streams. "There is no single definition of ephemerality". With respect to unique performances, for example, it has been noted that " hemerality is a quality caused by the ebb and flow of the crowd's concentration on the performance and a reflection of the nostalgic character of specific performances". Because different people may value the passage of time differently, ephemerality may be a relative, perceptual concept: "In brief, what is short-lived may not be the object itself, but the attention we afford it".Ronald Beiner, ''Political Philosophy: What It Is and Why It Matters'' (2014), p. 10. Ephemerality and nature Geographical features An ephemeral stream is that which only exists following precipitation. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cold Semi-arid Climate
Cold is the presence of low temperature, especially in the atmosphere. In common usage, cold is often a subjective perception. A lower bound to temperature is absolute zero, defined as 0.00K on the Kelvin scale, an absolute thermodynamic temperature scale. This corresponds to on the Celsius scale, on the Fahrenheit scale, and on the Rankine scale. Since temperature relates to the thermal energy held by an object or a sample of matter, which is the kinetic energy of the random motion of the particle constituents of matter, an object will have less thermal energy when it is colder and more when it is hotter. If it were possible to cool a system to absolute zero, all motion of the particles in a sample of matter would cease and they would be at complete rest in the classical sense. The object could be described as having zero thermal energy. Microscopically in the description of quantum mechanics, however, matter still has zero-point energy even at absolute zero, beca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Agropyron
''Agropyron'' is a genus of Eurasian plants in the grass family), native to Europe and Asia but widely naturalized in North America. Species in the genus are commonly referred to as wheatgrass. ; Species * '' Agropyron badamense'' - Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan * '' Agropyron bulbosum'' - Iran * '' Agropyron cimmericum'' - Ukraine, Crimea * '' Agropyron cristatum'' - Crested wheatgrass - Eurasia + North Africa from Spain + Morocco to Korea + Khabarovsk; naturalized in western + central North America (United States, Canada, northern Mexico) * '' Agropyron dasyanthum'' - Ukraine * '' Agropyron desertorum'' - Desert Wheatgrass - from Crimea + Caucasus to Mongolia + Siberia * '' Agropyron deweyi'' - Turkey * '' Agropyron fragile'' - Siberian wheatgrass - from Caucasus to Mongolia; naturalized in scattered locales in western United States + Canada * '' Agropyron michnoi'' - Buryatiya, Zabaykalsky Krai, Mongolia, Inner Mongolia * '' Agropyron mongolicum'' - Ga ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Artemisia Tridentata
'' Artemisia tridentata'', commonly called big sagebrush,MacKay, Pam (2013), ''Mojave Desert Wildflowers'', 2nd ed., , p. 264. Great Basin sagebrush or simply sagebrush (one of several related species of this name), is an aromatic shrub from the family Asteraceae. It grows in arid and semi-arid conditions, throughout a range of cold desert, steppe, and mountain habitats in the Intermountain West of North America. Big sagebrush and other ''Artemisia'' shrubs are the dominant plant species across large portions of the Great Basin. Sagebrush provides food and habitat for a variety of species, such as sage grouse, pronghorn antelope, grey vireo, pygmy rabbit, and mule deer. Several major threats exist to sagebrush ecosystems, including human settlements, conversion to agricultural land, invasive plant species, and wildfires. Native Americans have used the plant medicinally. It is also useful as firewood. Description Big sagebrush is a coarse, many-branched, pale-grey shru ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Semi-arid Climate
A semi-arid climate, semi-desert climate, or steppe climate is a dry climate sub-type. It is located on regions that receive precipitation below potential evapotranspiration, but not as low as a desert climate. There are different kinds of semi-arid climates, depending on variables such as temperature, and they give rise to different biomes. Defining attributes of semi-arid climates A more precise definition is given by the Köppen climate classification, which treats steppe climates (''BSh'' and ''BSk'') as intermediates between desert climates (BW) and humid climates (A, C, D) in ecological characteristics and agricultural potential. Semi-arid climates tend to support short, thorny or scrubby vegetation and are usually dominated by either grasses or shrubs as they usually cannot support forests. To determine if a location has a semi-arid climate, the precipitation threshold must first be determined. The method used to find the precipitation threshold (in millimeters): * ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Desert Climate
The desert climate or arid climate (in the Köppen climate classification ''BWh'' and ''BWk'') is a dry climate sub-type in which there is a severe excess of evaporation over precipitation. The typically bald, rocky, or sandy surfaces in desert climates are dry and hold little moisture, quickly evaporating the already little rainfall they receive. Covering 14.2% of Earth's land area, hot deserts are the second-most common type of climate on Earth after the Polar climate. There are two variations of a desert climate according to the Köppen climate classification: a hot desert climate (''BWh''), and a cold desert climate (''BWk''). To delineate "hot desert climates" from "cold desert climates", a mean annual temperature of is used as an isotherm so that a location with a ''BW'' type climate with the appropriate temperature above this isotherm is classified as "hot arid subtype" (''BWh''), and a location with the appropriate temperature below the isotherm is classified as "cold a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
North American Cordillera
The North American Cordillera, sometimes also called the Western Cordillera of North America, the Western Cordillera, or the Pacific Cordillera, is the North American portion of the American Cordillera, the mountain chain system along the Pacific coast of the Americas. The North American Cordillera covers an extensive area of mountain ranges, intermontane structural basin, basins, and plateaus in Western Canada, Western and Northern Canada, Northwestern Canada, Western United States, and Mexico, including much of the territory west of the Great Plains. The precise boundaries of this cordillera and its subregions, as well as the names of its various features, may differ depending on the definitions in each country or jurisdiction, and also depending on the scientific field; this cordillera is a particularly prominent subject in the scientific field of physical geography.Melanie Ostopowich (2005) The Cordillera', Weigl Educational Publishers Limited, , pp. 6, 12, and 20: "The Cordi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rain Shadow
A rain shadow is an area of significantly reduced rainfall behind a mountainous region, on the side facing away from prevailing winds, known as its leeward side. Evaporated moisture from body of water, bodies of water (such as oceans and large lakes) is carried by the prevailing sea breeze, onshore breezes towards the drier and hotter inland areas. When encountering elevated landforms, the moist air is orographic lift, driven upslope towards the summit, peak, where it expands, cools, and its moisture condenses and starts to Precipitation, precipitate. If the landforms are tall and wide enough, most of the humidity will be lost to precipitation over the windward side (also known as the ''rainward'' side) before ever making it past the top. As the air descends the leeward side of the landforms, it is compressed and heated, producing Foehn winds that ''absorb'' moisture downslope and cast a broad "shadow" of arid, dry climate region behind the ridge, mountain crests. This climate ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rocky Mountains
The Rocky Mountains, also known as the Rockies, are a major mountain range and the largest mountain system in North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch in great-circle distance, straight-line distance from the northernmost part of Western Canada, to New Mexico in the Southwestern United States. Depending on differing definitions between Canada and the U.S., its northern terminus is located either in northern British Columbia's Terminal Range south of the Liard River and east of Rocky Mountain Trench, the Trench, or in the northeastern foothills of the Brooks Range/British Mountains that face the Beaufort Sea coasts between the Canning River (Alaska), Canning River and the Firth River across the Alaska-Yukon border. Its southernmost point is near the Albuquerque metropolitan area, Albuquerque area adjacent to the Rio Grande rift and north of the Sandia–Manzano Mountains, Sandia–Manzano Mountain Range. Being the easternmost portion of the North American Cordillera, the Rockie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Structural Basin
A structural basin is a large-scale structural geology, structural formation of rock stratum, strata formed by tectonics, tectonic warping (Fold (geology), folding) of previously flat-lying strata into a syncline fold. They are geological depression (geology), depressions, the inverse of dome (geology), domes. Elongated structural basins are a type of geological Trough (geology), trough. Some structural basins are sedimentary basins, aggregations of sediment that filled up a depression or accumulated in an area; others were formed by tectonic events long after the sedimentary layers were deposited. Basins may appear on a geologic map as roughly circular or elliptical, with concentric layers. Because the strata dip toward the center, the exposed strata in a basin are progressively younger from the outside in, with the youngest rocks in the center. Basins are often large in areal extent, often hundreds of kilometers across. Structural basins are often important sources of coal, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Intermontane
Intermontane is a physiographic adjective formed from the prefix " inter-" (''signifying among, between, amid, during, within, mutual, reciprocal'') and the adjective "montane" (inhabiting, or growing in mountainous regions, especially cool, moist upland slopes below the timberline). The corresponding ''physiographic'' noun is intermountain, while the noun ''intermontane'' is an ''ecologic'' noun meaning ''among, between, amid, or within " flora and fauna of a montane habitat.''" As an example, an alpine region would be an intermontane for a species that migrates between a glacial region and a subalpine region. Use of the term *Intermontane Basin, a wide valley between mountain ranges that is partly filled with alluvium such as New Zealand's Mackenzie Basin. *Intermontane Belt, a physiogeological region in the North American Pacific Northwest. * Intermontane Plateaus, the United States physiographic region of the Intermountain West. *Intermontane Steppe, a term used main ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shrub Steppe
A shrub or bush is a small to medium-sized perennial woody plant. Unlike herbaceous plants, shrubs have persistent woody stems above the ground. Shrubs can be either deciduous or evergreen. They are distinguished from trees by their multiple stems and shorter height, less than tall. Small shrubs, less than tall are sometimes termed as subshrubs. Many botanical groups have species that are shrubs, and others that are trees and herbaceous plants instead. Some define a shrub as less than and a tree as over 6 m. Others use as the cutoff point for classification. Many trees do not reach this mature height because of hostile, less than ideal growing conditions, and resemble shrub-sized plants. Others in such species have the potential to grow taller in ideal conditions. For longevity, most shrubs are classified between perennials and trees. Some only last about five years in good conditions. Others, usually larger and more woody, live beyond 70. On average, they die after eigh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
