Juniper Pictures

During my time doing research at Reynolds Creek Experimental Watershed and Critical Zone Observatory (RCEW), I took quite a few pictures. Feel free to use these - but please cite me (Ryan Niemeyer) appropriately. If you really like one of the pictures and want a higher resolution photo, shoot me an email.

Juniper Site

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I conducted most of my juniper field research at RCEW at the "juniper site", where in the 1962 (verify) vegetation survey, this was the only place on that map labeled "juniper". It's on the southeast side of the watershed.

Looking north over the juniper site juniper site - September 2012

Evidence of juniper encroachment - while sagebrush populated the interspace, under many of the juniper trees were skeletons of sagebrush. dead sagebrush under tree

There was a narrow window when the juniper site was green and blooming with flowers. flowers south of juniper site

flowers at juniper site

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Snow under and around tree lysimeter on March 5, 2013 juniper lysimeter snow

Conversley, note the interspace lysimeter is buried (also taken on March 5, 2013) interspace lysimeter snow

Runoff filling the ephemeral creek bed during the snowmelt on March 5, 2013 runoff in creek bed runoff in creek bed - looking southwest

During the same day, looking at runoff generation, we saw a lot of overland flow occuring. overland flow

We also noticed that a lot of flow was leaving the hillslope via what appeared were animal burrows flow leaving slope

flow leaving animal burrow

flow leaving animal burrow 2

During that same day (March 5, 2013) we noticed dust on the snow. We speculated this was from dust blown from areas where fire had recently occured. dust on snow

Here's a close up look at the dust on the snow on March 6, 2013 close up of dust on snow

Snow pit during March 5, 2013 snow survey. This pits allow us to sample snow density, so combined with snow depth, we can estimate the total amount of water in the snowpack. snow pit

Snow on a tree branch on March 5, 2013 snow on tree limb

Snow deposition in sagebrush and juniper. Note the snow clumped around the sagebrush, whereas for juniper a large portion is intercepted.

snow in sagebrush and juniper

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Juniper berries on a large juniper November, 2012 juniper berries

And here on a smaller tree

juniper with berries

While installing the moisture sensors, I noticed the needle/moss layer was quite thick moss/needle layer

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Lysimeters were installed under the trees and in the interspace interspace lysimeter tree lysimeter

Zion during an ERT survey in September, 2012 Zion ERT survey

Rain-on-snow event in January 29th, 2014 at RCEW

Looking Uphill

Road

Weir

Reynolds Creek Experimental Watershed

Johnston Draw in March 2013 - north and south facing slopes in the upper part of the catchment Johnston Draw - March 2013

Upper Sheep Creek after a snow survey in March. Snowpack was pretty low already - so not much snow to measure! Note this picture is looking east, so the south facing (left side) is bare, the north facing (right side) is full of snow. In addition, wind blows from the southeast, forming drifts on north sides of slopes. The thick snow on the right side of the photo is the drift. Upper Sheep Creek

Much of Reynolds Creek is private land and grazing occurs on private and public (mostly BLM) land. cows

Looking south from the Quonset on April 6, 2013 snow on mountains from Quonset

Sunsets are great at RCEW! Taken in November 2012 RCEW sunset