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By Mark E. Miller, National Park Service
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Actively grazed.
Latitude: 38° 08.166' N
Longitude: 109° 36.866' W
Elevation: 5060 ft (1542 m)
CLIM-MET Site #4 is located on privately owned land at the north end of the Dugout Ranch, approximately 4.5 km due east of North Six-shooter Peak and 1.1 km east of Indian Creek. The site is situated at the mouth of Davis Canyon, a southwest-northeast trending drainage basin aligned with the prevailing southwesterly winds. The head of the canyon lies approximately 10 km southwest of the site. Soils at the site are mapped as Quaternary alluvium by Huntoon and others (1982), and as fine sand of the Nakai series, a mesic, Typic Calciorthid (Lammers, 1991). Elevation is approximately 1542 m.
The site of the Dugout CLIM-MET station and the surrounding lands have been grazed by domestic livestock since the arrival of Anglo-American settlers in the 1880s (Loope 1977). Currently, the immediate vicinity of the CLIM-MET station is utilized by 150-200 cattle for 2-3 weeks during each spring. Historic aerial photographs indicate that the site was irrigated and cultivated during the 1930s, although attempts to produce crops at this site probably were short-lived.
Vegetation at the site consists primarily of weedy annual plants. The winter-spring flora is dominated by the Asian exotic Chorispora tenella (Brassicaceae), known commonly as musk mustard or purple mustard, as well as the exotic Eurasian grass Bromus tectorum (cheatgrass). Depending on levels of fall-winter precipitation at the site, these two species in combination may cover 50-75 percent of the soil surface in spring, accounting for over 90 percent of total live plant cover. The Eurasian annual Erodium cicutarium (Geraniaceae), known commonly as filarce or storksbill, is present in low numbers. Livestock utilizing the site in spring rely on these three exotics for forage. The summer-fall flora is dominated by the annual Asian exotics Salsola pestifer (Chenopodiaceae, synonym S. kali) and S. paulsenii (collectively known as tumbleweeds or Russian thistle). Also abundant is Amaranthus albus (Amaranthaceae, common name tumble pigweed), an exotic annual native to tropical America. The exotic perennial Convolvulus arvensis (Convolvulaceae, bindweed) occurs at the site in small numbers. There are no known records indicating when these exotics first became established in the area, but Bromus, Erodium, and Salsola probably have been common since at least the 1930s. Native plants present at the site are restricted to scattered individuals of the shrub Atriplex canescens (Chenopodiaceae, four-wing saltbush) and the short-lived perennial Machaeranthera canescens (Asteraceae, purple aster).
Huntoon, P.W., Billingsley Jr., G.H., and Breed, W.J., 1982, Geologic map of Canyonlands National Park and vicinity, Utah: Moab, Utah, Canyonlands National History Association, scale 1:62,500.
Lammers, D.A., 1991, Soil survey of Canyonlands area, Utah, parts of Grand and San Juan counties: [Washington, D.C.], U.S.D.A. Soil Conservation Service, 293 p. + maps.
Loope, W.L., and Gifford, G.F., 1972, Influence of a soil microfloral crust on select properties of soils under pinyon-juniper in southeastern Utah: Journal of Soil and Water Conservation, v. 27, no. 4, p. 164-167.
U.S. Department of the Interior | U.S. Geological Survey
URL: http://esp.cr.usgs.gov/info/sw/clim-met/dugout.html
Page Contact Information: ESP Web Team
Page Last Modified: Tue 30-May-2006 7:59:56 MDT
