CGRG Bibliography of Canadian Geomorphology
Search Results
Author : Gavin, D.
Date : 1999
Title : Holocene fire history of the temperate rainforest, Clayoquot Sound, Vancouver Island.
Publication : Program and Abstracts. 42nd Annual Meeting of the Western Division of the Canadian Association of Geographers, Okanagan University College, Kelowna, British Columbia, March 11 to 13, 1999
Issue :
Page(s) :
Abstract
Lack of information about temporal and landscape pattern of fires is a key source of uncertainty regarding natural disturbance regimes in coastal rainforests of the Pacific Northwest. Two approaches were employed to reconstruct fire history: 1) point estimates of time-since-fire from tree ages and AMS dates on soil charcoal within a 700 ha area, and 2) spatially aggregated estimates of fire occurrence from an 1800-year lake sediment record of charcoal within the study area. At 72 sites, time-since-fire ranged from 1886 AD to 9670 14C years BP. Approximately 20% of the sites have not burned for over 7000 years; these are on north aspects and low terraces which burned only during warmer periods in the early Holocene. All sites on south aspects burned within the last 1000 years; here fire frequency was sufficient to maintain Douglas-fir through the late Holocene. The lake sediment record suggests fire intervals within the >200 ha catchment increased from decades (500-900 AD) to centuries (1200-1600 AD). Only a small portion of the fires detected in the sediment core were also detected at point samples within the catchment, suggesting that fires were spatially limited and a significant portion of the landscape has escaped fire during the late Holocene.
Bibliography of Canadian Geomorphology