Solifluction steps and risers, Lee Ridge, Glacier National Park, Montana, USA: a scale and pattern analysis

Walsh, Stephen J.; Bian, Ling; McKnight, Sean; Brown, Daniel G.; Hammer, Evan S.

doi:10.1016/s0169-555x(03)00151-x

Cited by 26 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…Figure 2 depicts a boulder that provides leeward shelter to conifers from the prevailing westerly winds, with relict solifluction terrace treads and risers in the background. Characteristics of the relict solifluction terrace treads and risers are detailed in Butler and Malanson (1989, 1999), Walsh, Butler, et al (2003), and Walsh, Bian, et al (2003).…”

Section: Study Site and Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Geomorphic Controls of Spatial Pattern and Process at Alpine Treeline∗

Resler

2006

The Professional Geographer

116

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This study examines the role of surface geomorphic features in tree establishment at the alpine treeline in Glacier National Park, Montana, through the presentation of a multiscale, conceptual model of biogeomorphic relationships at alpine treeline. Empirical observations gathered through a multiscale field methodology over three summers serve as a base for the model. The model highlights the importance of surface geomorphic features, specifically boulders and terrace risers, in creating favorable local site conditions, largely by protecting seedlings from wind. The sheltering effect of surface features enables initial seedling establishment, and in some cases survival, above current treeline locations, thereby initiating a positive feedback effect that encourages subsequent tree establishment. Geomorphic features are therefore important in linking scales of pattern and process at the alpine treeline ecotone.

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Section: Study Site and Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Geomorphic Controls of Spatial Pattern and Process at Alpine Treeline∗

Resler

2006

The Professional Geographer

116

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“…Walsh et al. (2003) reported on studies that examined the spatial pattern and scale dependence of solifluction steps and risers, a form of relic periglacial patterned ground that is hypothesized to influence ATE vegetation in Glacier National Park, Montana.…”

Section: Remote Sensing At the Alpine Treeline Ecotonementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Findings suggest that the transect characteristics change with elevation (i.e., the lower elevation solifluction features are smaller and more heavily vegetated than those found at higher elevations). McKnight (2004) followed an approach similar to Walsh et al. (2003), but also included additional terrain descriptors, an assessment of 1‐dimensional patterns of the field transects, and cluster analysis to associate the spatial pattern of field transect from multiple drainage basins to hypothesized geomorphologic controls.…”

Section: Remote Sensing At the Alpine Treeline Ecotonementioning

confidence: 99%

Remote Sensing of Mountain Environments

Weiss

Walsh

2009

Geography Compass

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Logistical challenges of conducting field research in topographically complex alpine settings, combined with the multi‐scale and multi‐thematic informational needs of earth and landscape scientists and program managers, have contributed to the development and application of remote sensing data, methods, and approaches for the study of mountain environments. This article provides a brief introduction to remote sensing science; illustrates specific challenges unique to remote sensing applications in mountainous environments, along with corresponding solutions; provides several examples of remote sensing applications in the alpine treeline ecotone; and concludes by describing recent and anticipated remote sensing developments that have the potential to improve characterizations of alpine settings through satellite surveillance techniques linked to image processing and analysis.

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“…Even where geographic foam has not been recognized, GIScience has recognized that the description of reality is variable as a consequence of data at different spatial, temporal, phenomenological, and, for remote sensing, spectral resolutions. Advances in pattern analysis (e.g., Crews‐Meyer 2002, 2004), data visualization (e.g., MacEachren 2001a, 2001b; Walsh et al 2003), image change‐detections (e.g., T. R. Allen and Kupfer 2000), spatial simulations (Messina and Walsh 2005), and object‐oriented programming (Bian 2003) to support GIS and remote sensing analyses of sustained patterns or landscape features seem particularly applicable to addressing the issues of error and uncertainty described above and the challenges associated with pattern‐process relations of ecological and human settlement frontiers and beyond.…”

Section: Frontiers and Challengesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Landscape Frontiers, Geography Frontiers: Lessons to Be Learned

Malanson

Zeng

Walsh³

2006

The Professional Geographer

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Advancing ecotones, such as treelines and frontiers of human settlement, may share some characteristic dynamics because both include feedbacks between spatial pattern and process. Both might be examined as complex, self-organizing systems in terms of complexity theory and thus be usefully compared. A cellular automaton of advancing alpine treeline in Montana shows attractors in power-law frequency distributions of spatial and temporal pattern. Frontiers of study areas in the Amazonian region of Ecuador, analyzed using change detection of Landsat Thematic Mapper imagery, have power-law distributions of advancing deforestation. Alternative approaches in self-organized complexity, including self-organized percolation, and the inverse cascade model, and an approach to complexity involving optimization, highly optimized tolerance, are considered. Some combination of these, based on their common ancestry in percolation theory (with its ties to geocomputation), might provide insights into population-environment interactions at settlement frontiers and ecotones together, given comparisons drawn between the spatial feedbacks at alpine treeline and in Ecuador. GIScience and landscape ecology can develop synergies by building on this area of geocomputation and complexity theory, as in analysis of attractors in state spaces of spatial metrics from spatially explicit simulations and representing their uncertainty.

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Solifluction steps and risers, Lee Ridge, Glacier National Park, Montana, USA: a scale and pattern analysis

Cited by 26 publications

References 27 publications

Geomorphic Controls of Spatial Pattern and Process at Alpine Treeline∗

Geomorphic Controls of Spatial Pattern and Process at Alpine Treeline∗

Remote Sensing of Mountain Environments

Landscape Frontiers, Geography Frontiers: Lessons to Be Learned

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