Life
in the FieldLab 1 Geology of National Parks Familiarization of Websites Used in this Course The purpose of this lab is to give you some experience navigating the websites that will be used during the course to complete the topographic map exercises in lab and to aid you in your Roadtrip project due at the end of the semester. I will ask you to find some facts on this website and print some pages off just to make sure that you know what you're doing. Good luck and happy hunting. 1. Go to the National Park website and find the following information: Where is Bandelier National Monument located? What are the main attractions of this monument? When was it designated a National Monument? Say you wanted to camp at Bandelier N.M. and you had 40 people with you. Say you show up at the entrance on July 4th at 7:00 AM- would you be able to get in? Say you want to visit Chaco Culture National Historic Park the next day. How long is your drive round trip from Bandelier? If you are standing in Ponderosa Campground facing southeast, what feature is behind you? From Ponderosa Campground, if you wanted to hike down to a river, what is the closest creek to your location? What two highways intersect closest to Ponderosa Campground? Go back to the NPS main page and find Glacier National Park. How old are the oldest sedimentary rocks in the park? Say you want to take a 22' long RV up the Going-to-the-Sun road, what will the NPS say about that and why? What are your two options for camping in a campground at the park? Suppose a significant other or family member wants to go with you to Glacier NP but is not into camping, what other options do you have if you want to stay in the park? Go "In Depth" and find out what you can about Bears at Glacier. What two types will you find there? If you have pepper spray, what is the NPS's official position on its use and effectiveness? Find the Geology Subdiscipline Home Page. Follow the "Connections" link. What is Connections? What other Department of the Interior Bureau is the focus of the first Connections? From the Connections Link follow the Geologic Mapping link. What map is displayed here and why is it a topic of interest? Under the "Landscapes" folder follow the "Geologic Framework for Ecosystem and Structure Function" link. What four National Parks fall within the Mojave Desert Ecosystem? Why are maps like this one important? Go to http://terraserver-usa.com Pull up the map for Bowling Green , Ohio. What is the scale of the map as shown on your screen? Click on the "1:25000" scale button. How does that change the view of the Bowling Green Map? Increase the view of the map from "small" to "large". How does that change the view of the Bowling Green Map? Copy of this map in the space below Go back to the topozone.com home page and find a map of Yosemite National Park . What is the scale of the map on your screen? Enlarge the view of the map to "large". What natural feature is located in the upper NW corner? Click on the green arrow in the NW corner of the map. Now, look back in the southeast corner of the new map. What unnatural feature is located here? Locate Le Conte point on the north side of the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir. Place the cross hairs directly over the "e" in "Le" of "Le Conte" and click. What happens to the map? Decrease the scale to 1:25000. Are your cross hairs still on the "e"? Reduce this map back to the "Small" view. Print off a copy of this map and color all of the water blue with your highlighter. What is the elevation of Le Conte Point? Is there vegetation on top of Le Conte Point? Go to http://terraserver-usa.com In the "Search TerraServer" box, type in " Zion National Park " and hit the "Go" button. In the first option, follow the link to "Topo Map 7/1/1980" Under the "Navigate" panel, increase the map size to "Large" 1. What changes about the map? What does not? In the navigation panel, notice the exponential resolution scale. What scale is the map currently? Increase the resolution to 64 meters. Find Utah Route 16 (the red road) in the lower half of the map. Follow the road east and notice the park boundary (the black dashed rectangular line). On that road, near the park boundary, locate Springdale Utah , just outside of the park. Place the 'finger' of your cursor directly over the white dot that represents Springdale and click. What happens to the resolution of the map? What is the contour interval of this map? Look NE of Springdale , inside the park. Locate Zion Lodge. Place the finger of the cursor directly in the center of the black square that represents the lodge and click. What is in the space where the black square was? What is the contour interval of this map? Find the word " Springdale " on the east side of Utah Route 9. Follow the black line between the "g" and the "d" in " Springdale " north to where it approaches the furthest most SW loop in road system you see inside the park. Click at the end of that line. What is the resolution of the new map? At that same point, click again. What is the resolution of the new map? What has changed about the map compared to the other one? Give some examples and be specific. What is the contour interval of the new map? Notice that the set of road loops now has a name, what is that road system? Place your cursor over the teepee symbol and click. What is the resolution of the map? What color is vegetation on this map? What color is water? What does white represent? What is the contour interval? Why has the contour interval remained unchanged and the resolution increased? Why do you think this is the case? Notice the "Related Links" panel on the left. Under the "Other Imagery" link click on the USGS Aerial Photo. What date was that photo taken? Find the loops that you were looking at in the topographic map. Notice the trees in Watchman Campground. Use the "back" button to go back to topo map image of the same scale. Does the map show any vegetation in that part of the campground? While still on the topo map page take notice of the areas with vegetation. Now, go "forward" to your aerial photo and examine those areas for vegetation. What might explain this discrepancy? Using the forward and backward buttons, what features appear on the topo map, but do not on the aerial photo? While on the aerial photo, click on the intersection of the SW most loop and the main road through Watchman Campground. What happens to the resolution? Can you do this on the topo map? While on the aerial photo, increase the resolution to 4 meters. What other features on the photo can be seen in this scale that could not on the 1 meter scale? Increase the resolution to 8 meters. What feature now appear that you could not see before? Can you still see Watchman campground? Increase the resolution to 16 meters. What can you see now that you couldn't see before? What can you now longer see at this scale that you could before? Increase the scale to 64 meters. What features can you see, what features can't you see? Contrasting Aerial Photos and Topographic maps, what are there relative advantages and disadvantages? Which do you think will be easier to use when calculating distance, stream gradient, or when doing a topographic profile? Comment on there differences. Keep your aerial photo open. Open a new page and go to the NPS website. Find a park map of Zion National Park . Open it and look at the purple boxed area. Notice that a separate map of this area appears on the right side. Find Watchman Campground and Zoom in on it using the magnifying glass tool. What features does this map show that the aerial photo and the topo map do not (be specific)? What information is available on the topo map but not on the park map and how is this information useful? What information is the same? Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the two types of maps compared to the aerial photo. |