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Chris Fastie (cfastie)
Salisbury, VT,
United States of America
Gigapans: 39
Snapshots: 227
Bookmarks: 0
Last Visited: November 19, 2009
Tags:
coverts,
salisburyvt,
fastie
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Nikon D40, Nikkor 300mm f/4.5 AI-s, Epic 100 |
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Nikon D40, Reflex-Nikkor 500mm f/8, Epic 100 |
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Nikon D40, Nikkor 55-200mm VR AF-S f/4-5.6 G ED, Epic 100 |
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Nikon D40, Nikkor AF 70-300mm f/4-5.6, Epic 100 |
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Nikon D40, Nikkor P C 105mm f/2.5, Epic 100 |
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This north end of the lake has the nicest beaches where glacial rivers built deltas 13,600 years ago. The northernmost part of the lake, to the right, is surrounded by a low sandy plain which is the largest delta complex. This plain is the location of Camp Keewaydin, Camp Songadeewin, and some of the older summer cottages.
I was waiting for a clearer day to retake this panorama from August 1, but it never happened. The distant landscape is so hazy that the stitcher added an extra mountain ridge. Now I realize that I am the only one who would ever notice that.
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63
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The Condemned Crown Point Bridge
Author: Chris Fastie (cfastie)
Tags:
fofs,
fastie,
usa,
history,
scenic,
bridge,
newyork,
vermont,
epic100,
300mm
Size: 0.90 gigapixels
Added: November 3, 2009
Total Views: 270
View in Google Earth 4.2+
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The Crown Point Bridge was abruptly closed on October 16, 2009 after underwater inspection revealed dramatic deterioration of two support piers. Built in 1929 between Chimney Point, Vermont (right) and Crown Point, New York (left), it is one of only two bridges that cross Lake Champlain. The bridge is not expected to open again soon, if ever, and local businesses and several hundred daily commuters are scrambling to cope.
News update (November 9, 2009): The bridge is too unstable to repair and must be demolished. http://www.vermontbiz.com/news/november/new-york-vermont-replace-champlain-bridge
The shores which so spectacularly narrow the lake here have a long history of human occupation and drama. Ruins of a 1731 French fort and the larger British 1759-1763 Fort Crown Point can be seen under the arched through-truss. On the Vermont side, the Chimney Point Museum occupies a two story 1780s brick tavern where Seth Warner plotted the American capture of Fort Crown Point. In 2000, the bridge made cameo appearances in What Lies Beneath (Harrison Ford, Michelle Pfeiffer) and Me, Myself, and Irene (Jim Carrey, Renee Zellweger).
Notes: I used a Nikon D40 with a Nikkor 300mm f/4.5 AI-s lens at f/11, 1/250 second, ISO 200, NEF. 35mm equiv is 450mm, and field of view was set to 3.1 degrees. Focus was manually adjusted many times. Two second shutter delay was initiated by wireless remote. Lightroom was used to remove vignetting and increase exposure and saturation before outputting jpegs for stitching.
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126
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Northern Hardwood Forest and Stone Wall, Salisbury, Vermont
Author: Chris Fastie (cfastie)
Tags:
fastie,
usa,
fofs,
habitatvt,
forest,
salisburyvt,
vermont,
105mm,
epic100
Size: 1.26 gigapixels
Added: November 2, 2009
Total Views: 136
View in Google Earth 4.2+
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Northern Hardwood Forest – Sugar maple and American beech are common in this stand and provide the yellow glow. Beech trees have reproduced by root sprouts far from the main trunks and form a dense sapling thicket. These saplings and some young sugar maples have held onto their yellowed leaves and brighten this scene after most canopy leaves have fallen.
The soil parent material at this site is silty deltaic bottomset beds deposited 13,600 years ago under 25 m of lake water near the mouth of a proglacial river. The abundant stones that were gathered to build the wall suggest a close proximity to the glacial ice that was constraining the spread of the ice-contact delta.
Although most of the tree species here can live 300 to 400 years, few if any in this stand are more than 100 years old. The near side of the stone wall was an agricultural field until World War II. The far side has been a forest since about World War I, but was heavily logged in the last few decades.
Some botanical and technical information is in a comment.
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127
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Hemlock Forest, Salisbury, Vermont
Author: Chris Fastie (cfastie)
Tags:
forest,
epic100,
vermont,
salisburyvt,
habitatvt,
usa,
fofs,
fastie,
105mm
Size: 0.74 gigapixels
Added: October 30, 2009
Total Views: 191
View in Google Earth 4.2+
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Hemlock Forest in the Salisbury Town Forest -- Eastern hemlocks are responsible for more than 75% of both tree density and canopy cover in this stand, and hardwoods scattered among the hemlocks include three species of oak. The dark forest floor supports little more than mosses. Many of the trees here are about 200 years old, making it the oldest stand in the Salisbury Town Forest. A few trees are 300 years old, including two hemlocks in another GigaPan (http://gigapan.org/gigapans/35738/) and possibly the white oak near the center of this scene. Logging has occurred here (cut stumps are present in the stand) but it has been less thorough than most places in Salisbury and Vermont.
This stand occupies a southeast-facing slope with thin till-derived soils over Cheshire quartzite.
Some botanical and technical information is in a comment.
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65
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Old Hemlocks, Salisbury Town Forest, Vermont
Author: Chris Fastie (cfastie)
Tags:
epic100,
habitatvt,
salisburyvt,
forest,
fastie105mm,
usa,
vermont,
fofs
Size: 0.73 gigapixels
Added: October 30, 2009
Total Views: 186
View in Google Earth 4.2+
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Ring counts of increment cores from the two large hemlocks in this scene confirm that both are more than 300 years old. These are certainly the oldest trees in the town forest, and likely the oldest in Salisbury. A few large chestnut oaks and white oaks in the stand may be nearly as old. It is unusual to find living trees that were part of the forest canopy before Europeans colonized the area (few settlers were in this part of Vermont until the French and Indian War ended in 1763). Hemlocks can live 1000 years, so these impressive trees are a pale reminder of the majestic original forest.
Another view in this stand is here: http://gigapan.org/gigapans/35750/
Some technical information is in a comment.
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White pine, red oak, and paper birch are common in this view today because two centuries of timber removal has reduced the success of the original late successional dominants. According to the "witness trees" noted in the original lot surveys in Salisbury, the most common trees in the late 18th century were American beech, sugar maple, and eastern hemlock . In this scene, most of the green tree foliage is of white pine, and the rich brown foliage includes red oak and white oak. The brightest yellow leaves are aspen, but leaves of some red maple, sugar maple, and paper birch are also yellow.
This panorama is a repeat of http://gigapan.org/gigapans/28882/ which was taken in summer with a poorer lens.
Some technical notes are in a comment.
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From the top of McCardell Bicentennial Hall, the tallest building on campus, looking east to the Green Mountains of Vermont. It is a quiet Friday afternoon, but with much anticipation for the weekend's upcoming Quidditch World Cup. The quidditch pitches can be seen in the largest field in the scene.
Some technical notes are in a comment.
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Northern Hardwood Forest -- This is the most common forest type in Vermont, and varies greatly in species composition from place to place. Forests like this cover countless square miles on the glacial till mantled slopes of the Green Mountains. This stand at 530 m in the Green Mountain National Forest is dominated by sugar maple, but American beech and yellow birch (present in small numbers here) dominate at other sites. White ash and eastern hemlock are also present nearby.
Probably few trees here are more than 120 years old. Like most stands of this type, repeated logging has occurred here during the last two centuries. Had no logging occurred at this site, tree diameters might be 3-5 times greater, and species composition would differ in unknown ways.
Some technical information is in a comment.
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131
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Pitch pine forest study plot, Salisbury, Vermont
Author: Chris Fastie (cfastie)
Tags:
105mm,
fastie,
usa,
salisburyvt,
fofs,
vermont,
habitatvt,
epic100
Size: 0.68 gigapixels
Added: October 18, 2009
Total Views: 386
View in Google Earth 4.2+
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Pine-Oak-Heath-Sandplain Forest, Salisbury, Vermont -- Due to the presence of pitch pine, this is one of the rarest forest communities in Vermont, known only from the deltaic sandplains of Colchester (http://gigapan.org/gigapans/30324/) and this stand in the Salisbury Town Forest. The parent material for the droughty, acid soils is a 13,600 year old deposit of sand and gravel that is about 20 m deep here (an exposure of the deltaic strata under this surface can be seen here: http://gigapan.org/gigapans/34814/). Students at Middlebury College under the direction of Matt Landis have been describing the forest composition and population structure of this stand, and addressing questions about its disturbance history and the probable fate of the pitch pines. Results suggest that pitch pines have not reproduced in this part of the stand for many decades, and that many of the large pitch pines are dying. Most trees marked with flagging in this view are pitch pines.
Some botanical and technical information is in a comment.
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87
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Mesic Hardwood Forest, Salisbury, Vermont
Author: Chris Fastie (cfastie)
Tags:
105mm,
epic100,
fofs,
habitatvt,
salisburyvt,
usa,
vermont,
forest,
fastie
Size: 0.30 gigapixels
Added: October 17, 2009
Total Views: 219
View in Google Earth 4.2+
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Mesic Maple-Ash-Hickory-Oak Forest -- Thin glacial till soils over calcium-rich limestone and marble on this west-facing slope support a productive forest dominated by sugar maple, red oak, and white ash. Shagbark hickory and hophornbeam are also common. If allowed to mature for a few decades, this could become important habitat for the federally endangered Indiana bat, whose second largest breeding colony in the country is 3 km from here. Indiana bats spend daytime in summer under tree bark, favoring large live shagbark hickory trees or large dead standing trees of other species with detaching bark.
Some technical information is in a comment.
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