Integrative Natural History of Fayette Historic State Park, Part 11: Calciphilic Forest | Garden Peninsula, on Michigan's Upper Peninsula, USA
Looking south-southeastward at the low, surf-cut cliff of Burnt Bluff Group along the Big Bay de Noc shore. We're down the coast a bit from the park's ghost town.
This post complements Part 10 of this set, which was taken six years before. Both shots document the same locale: the same bedrock, the same flaggy beach.
A very common sight along the upper reaches of the Lake Michigan littoral is Arbor Vitae (Thuja occidentalis, also known as Northern White Cedar) growing a top of an exposure of Regional Silurian Dolostone. Here it's the darker-green tree species of narrowly pyramidal habit. It's a conifer that loves to grow in soils derived from calcium-rich carbonate rock.
And the most obvious hardwood present here is the white-barked Paper Birch, Betula papyrifera. The most prominent example in this frame has already passed on, bought the farm, joined the choir invisible, or kicked the bucket, depending on your preferred euphemism.
As the next two photos in this series will demonstrate, there's ample evidence that the lowest Burnt Bluff formation, the Byron, outcrops here. In addition, there may well be some overlying Hendricks Dolomite, too. It's definitely found up the coast a bit, at Middle Bluff.
All this stone first formed as lime mud deposited in tidal-flat to deeper conditions in a warm saltwater sea that covered this part of Laurentia, North America's forerunner, about 425 Ma ago. Now, exposed to the powerful forces of weathering and erosion, it temporarily fronts a huge freshwater lake that is the legacy of a much different climate—the Pleistocene ice age.
To see the other photos and descriptions in this set, visit my Integrative Natural History of Fayette Historic State Park album.
Integrative Natural History of Fayette Historic State Park, Part 11: Calciphilic Forest | Garden Peninsula, on Michigan's Upper Peninsula, USA
Looking south-southeastward at the low, surf-cut cliff of Burnt Bluff Group along the Big Bay de Noc shore. We're down the coast a bit from the park's ghost town.
This post complements Part 10 of this set, which was taken six years before. Both shots document the same locale: the same bedrock, the same flaggy beach.
A very common sight along the upper reaches of the Lake Michigan littoral is Arbor Vitae (Thuja occidentalis, also known as Northern White Cedar) growing a top of an exposure of Regional Silurian Dolostone. Here it's the darker-green tree species of narrowly pyramidal habit. It's a conifer that loves to grow in soils derived from calcium-rich carbonate rock.
And the most obvious hardwood present here is the white-barked Paper Birch, Betula papyrifera. The most prominent example in this frame has already passed on, bought the farm, joined the choir invisible, or kicked the bucket, depending on your preferred euphemism.
As the next two photos in this series will demonstrate, there's ample evidence that the lowest Burnt Bluff formation, the Byron, outcrops here. In addition, there may well be some overlying Hendricks Dolomite, too. It's definitely found up the coast a bit, at Middle Bluff.
All this stone first formed as lime mud deposited in tidal-flat to deeper conditions in a warm saltwater sea that covered this part of Laurentia, North America's forerunner, about 425 Ma ago. Now, exposed to the powerful forces of weathering and erosion, it temporarily fronts a huge freshwater lake that is the legacy of a much different climate—the Pleistocene ice age.
To see the other photos and descriptions in this set, visit my Integrative Natural History of Fayette Historic State Park album.