The Hall Natural Area or Harvey Monroe Hall Natural Area is a region on the eastern border of

Yosemite National Park Yosemite National Park ( ) is a List of national parks of the United States, national park of the United States in California. It is bordered on the southeast by Sierra National Forest and on the northwest by Stanislaus National Forest. The p ...

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

. The area is located about 1.25 miles (2.0 km) northwest of

Tioga Pass Tioga Pass is a mountain pass in the Sierra Nevada mountain range of California. State Route 120 runs through it, and serves as the eastern entry point for Yosemite National Park, at the Tioga Pass Entrance Station. It is the highest elevation ...

, and is approximately four miles (6.4 km) long from north to south and 2.75 miles (4.4 km) wide at its widest point. It lies completely within the

Inyo National Forest Inyo National Forest is a United States National Forest covering parts of the eastern Sierra Nevada of California and the White Mountains of California and Nevada. The forest hosts several superlatives, including Mount Whitney, the highest p ...

Geography

The Natural Area covers . Elevations range from along

Lee Vining Creek Lee Vining Creek is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed March 17, 2011 stream in Mono County, California, flowing into the endorheic basin of Mono Lake. It is the second l ...

to atop

Mount Conness Mount Conness is a mountain in the Sierra Nevada range, to the west of the Hall Natural Area. Conness is on the boundary between the Inyo National Forest and Yosemite National Park. The Conness Glacier lies north of the summit. History Moun ...

. The entire area is drained by Lee Vining Creek, which flows from northwest to southeast.

Glaciation A glacial period (alternatively glacial or glaciation) is an interval of time (thousands of years) within an ice age that is marked by colder temperatures and glacier advances. Interglacials, on the other hand, are periods of warmer climate be ...

strongly affected the topography. Several deeply glaciated northeast-facing

cirques A (; from the Latin word ) is an amphitheatre-like valley formed by glacial erosion. Alternative names for this landform are corrie (from , meaning a pot or cauldron) and ; ). A cirque may also be a similarly shaped landform arising from fluvi ...

are present, with steep headwalls and flats or lakes at their floors. Much of the lower elevation area is stepped topography resulting from differential erosion along jointing planes in the granitic bedrock. The climate is high Sierran montane with copious winter snowfall. Average annual precipitation is estimated to be more than . There is great variation in temperature and growing season.

History and purpose

The

Research Natural Area Research Natural Area is a designation for certain protected areas in the United States. Research Natural Areas (RNAs) are part of a nationwide network of ecological areas set aside for both research and education. The network includes areas ma ...

(RNA) program is a nationwide system created to protect a network of federally administered public lands for the primary purposes of maintaining

biological diversity Biodiversity is the variability of life on Earth. It can be measured on various levels. There is for example genetic variability, species diversity, ecosystem diversity and phylogenetic diversity. Diversity is not distributed evenly on Eart ...

, providing baseline ecological information, and encouraging research and university

natural history Natural history is a domain of inquiry involving organisms, including animals, fungi, and plants, in their natural environment, leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. A person who studies natural history is cal ...

education. In California, the RNA program is administered jointly by the

USDA Forest Service The United States Forest Service (USFS) is an agency within the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It administers the nation's 154 national forests and 20 national grasslands covering of land. The major divisions of the agency are the Chief's ...

Pacific Southwest Research Station and Pacific Southwest Region The Hall Natural Area was one of the first established in California (in 1933). The

Carnegie Institution of Washington The Carnegie Institution for Science, also known as Carnegie Science and the Carnegie Institution of Washington, is an organization established to fund and perform scientific research in the United States. This institution is headquartered in W ...

’s studies on

genotype The genotype of an organism is its complete set of genetic material. Genotype can also be used to refer to the alleles or variants an individual carries in a particular gene or genetic location. The number of alleles an individual can have in a ...

- environment interactions made much use of the transplant gardens at the south end of the Natural Area. Since then, other researchers have used the area, studying social organization of Belding ground squirrels, dynamics of wind-blown

detritus In biology, detritus ( or ) is organic matter made up of the decomposition, decomposing remains of organisms and plants, and also of feces. Detritus usually hosts communities of microorganisms that colonize and decomposition, decompose (Reminera ...

in snow banks, and community structuring of

subalpine forest Montane ecosystems are found on the slopes of mountains. The alpine climate in these regions strongly affects the ecosystem because temperatures fall as elevation increases, causing the ecosystem to stratify. This stratification is a crucial f ...

birds.

References

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