Northeast Edge of Lubbock Lake Landmark

June 12 I was exploring this area with ellen5 and didn't recognize it from our 2018 bioblitz. James' Prairie Clover was not where where I found it a year before and other plants were gone and the cliffside looked different. The REASON, I now think, is erosion. The city has paved a large parking lot adjoining LLL land and with the flat hard surface of the soccer fields, in heavy rain the adjoining edges of Yellowhouse draw surely look like Niagara Falls.

I think this area along the NE cliffside is critical to explore before more is washed away, and regret not figuring this out sooner.

@ellen5 , @kdhopper

Posted on June 19, 2019 04:27 PM by thebark thebark

Comments

One must tread lightly, though! I don't like tramping around on those fragile slopes too much. But you're equipped to photograph detail from a good distance, i believe

Posted by ellen5 almost 5 years ago

Good point. Some of us are, um, heavier and more clumsy than others. Avoiding lugged sole boots in favor of crepe would be good. Wyman Meinzer is famous for wearing a soft sole moccasin boot when out and about. It's not just trampling plants but about harming the biofilm of Nostoc and other micro-organisms that coat the undisturbed caliche. THERE IS NO BARE SURFACE. Daria warned us repeatedly about this.

Posted by thebark almost 5 years ago

Desert soils ARE indeed very fragile. So, then, what about fire? I don't know how to reconcile that.

Posted by ellen5 almost 5 years ago

And in grasslands there is trampling by bison and the hooves of pronghorn as well as fire. And Indians moved thru the land and were hardly gentle, thou nothing compares to the tread of hoards of city dwellers brought near to fragile places by autos and rvs and buses. To be clearer, the blackish coating of lichen and blue-green algae found on long undisturbed caliche at Lubbock Lake Landmark and in places at what I call Mackenzie Park Wilds and surrounding the Dunbar Lake area is likely similar or analogous to the cryptogamic soil biofilm found on pristine desert soil and as easily damaged. I don't know if anybody has studied caliche biofilms. The general notion is to think of caliche as bare waste ground: "There ain't nuttin' there."

Posted by thebark almost 5 years ago

I'm interested in the ash layer. Nobody ever thinks about it. Or maybe soil guys do.
Damn is it too late to go back and study geology?

Posted by ellen5 almost 5 years ago

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