Steens Mountain is a major horst block near the northern terminus of the Basin and Range geomorphic province of southeastern Oregon. A section of Miocene volcanic rocks totaling 5000 feet in thickness are exposed in a fault escarpment on the eastern side of Steens Nountain. These include: the Pike Creek...
Steens Mountain in SE Oregon is part of the northern Basin and Range Province,
and represents a horst tilted about 100 to the west that is bounded to the east by a high
angle, NNE trending normal fault. The minimum displacement is about 1200 m. Volcanic
rocks, exposed along the...
Since the late 1880's western juniper has expanded in range and
increased in density in sagebrush-bunchgrass, riparian, and forested plant
communities of the Pacific Northwest. Succession to western juniper
woodland has been shown to reduce the productivity and diversity of the
understory component, result in concentration of soil nutrients beneath...
Sage grouse are a species of concern because their abundance, distribution, and productivity have declined during the past century. Sage grouse productivity has been linked to specific habitat components including particular forbs and native bunchgrasses. Studies on the effects of fire were conducted in Southeastern Oregon in mountain big sagebrush...
Mountain Quail (Oreortyx pictus) populations have declined in many areas of the western Great Basin during the past century. Yet the life history of this species is little known. From 1997 to 2000, I studied radio-marked Mountain Quail in Hell's Canyon in northeastern Oregon, in the Cascade Mountains of southwestern...
Fire suppression in high-elevation sagebrush steppe over the last century has
profoundly influenced the structure and complexity of vegetation communities.
Although fire is the primary management tool used to restore these areas, the impact
of this management practice on associated avian communities is poorly understood.
We examined patterns of habitat...
Western juniper has rapidly expanded into sagebrush steppe communities in the Intermountain West during the past 120 years. This expansion has occurred across a wide range of soil types and topographic positions. These plant communities, however, are typically treated in current peer-reviewed literature generically. The focus of this research is...