The Vigil Network: a means of observing landscape change in drainage basins

Abstract

Long-term monitoring of geomorphic, hydrological, and biological characteristics of landscapes provides an effective means of relating observed change to possible causes of the change. Identification of changes in basin characteristics, especially in arid areas where the response to altered climate or land use is generally rapid and readily apparent, might provide the initial direct indications that factors such as global warming and cultural impacts have affected the environment. The Vigil Network provides an opportunity for earth and life scientists to participate in a systematic monitoring effort to detect landscape changes over time, and to relate such changes to possible causes. The Vigil Network is an ever-increasing group of sites and basins used to monitor landscape features with as much as 50 years of documented geomorphic and related observations.     

Holocene pollen stratigraphy and bog development in the western part of the Kola Peninsula, Russia

Pollen and macrofossil investigations and radiocarbon datings were carried out at a bog in the Khibiny mountains and the northernmost bog in European Russia on the Rybachiy Peninsula (69°98'N) on the western part of the Kola Peninsula. Peat accumulation on the Kola Peninsula started at c . 8500–7500 BP. Pinus sylvestris reached its present northern limit on the peninsula by 7000 BP, while 6000–5000/4500 BP was a time of maximal progress of birch forest tundra up to the Barents Sea shoreline. Alnus ineana grew up to the Rybachiy Peninsula c . 40 km north of its present-day northern limit. By c , 5500/5300 BP Picen ohovata had immigrated to the Khibiny mountains. After 5000/4500 BP the forested area had retreated in the northern part of the Kola Peninsula and the tundra belt bordering the Barents Sea shore was formed. By 3500 BP spruce had reached its modern northern limit.