Journal Entry 4

4/5- Class Day
Today we listened to a speaker talk about the geographical history of Washington state’s various components. This was a very unique talk because I had not known about the diverse geological history that divides Washington into such differing regions. These differences come from the fact that parts of eastern Washington are of the original North American continent, while many of the lands farther west have arisen from a variety of geological processes. Plate tectonics result in the release of magma and the creation of mountains and new land masses. This is some of the history of central and western Washington. Because of the various geological histories of our state, these regions have many varying environments. East of the Cascade Mountains, Washington becomes immediately wetter (finding the temperate rainforests) and then drier (as the “sponge” of clouds has been wrung out). This leads to very different vegetation make ups. The true alpine forests are found near the Cascades, while west of the Cascades Washington is primarily lowland forests. However, also due to the logging industry and urbanization of the western part of the state, nearly 70% of the lowland forests were lost between 1970 and 1999, and surely this number has grown significantly in recent years.
Farther east, where the serpentine barrens and other drier climates exist, competition for poor soil nutrition and low rainfall has weeded out many of the species that exist in western Washington.
The terms flora and vegetation are technically distinct in these discussions. The flora of an area is essentially a list of plant species in an area. When capitalized as “Flora”, it is a published catalogue of the extant species. Vegetation has to do with the ratio of plants in a region, dominance, abundance, etc.

Posted on 01 May, 2012 18:43 by keenan44