By Frank Hanson

We are fortunate to have two professionals from the University of Oregon doing research out here on the Olympic Peninsula who have offered to present their work to the community. So don’t miss this opportunity at 7 p.m. Wednesday, June 1, in the Hemlock Forest Room for another great Evening Talk.

Dan Gavin is a professor of geography at the University of Oregon. He studies past environments through the lens of information contained in lake sediments, addressing questions of the rate at which forests change when faces with changing climate and fire.

James Meacham is a senior research associate and executive director of the InfoGraphics Lab, in the Geography Department at the University of Oregon. His primary focus is on map and atlas design, and data visualization. He is a co-author on the “Atlas of Yellowstone” (2012) and is working on the creation of the “Atlas of Wildlife Migration: Wyoming’s Ungulates.”

 

 

A synopsis of their talk:

Changing climate and increased fire has a lot of us nervous about how natural areas will cope into the future. One important perspective in this concern is to examine how environments responded to past climate changes. In the 20,000 years since the glacial maximum, the Olympic Peninsula has experienced some abrupt warming events and even time periods with summers warmer than today.

Gavin will describe some of the research he has conducted on the Olympic Peninsula using lake sediments that preserve a detailed history of these events. Another important perspective is a spatial view from synthesizing a broad array of information into concise maps to show how places differ in their change over time. With the view toward developing an “Atlas of the Olympic Peninsula,” cartographer Meacham will show some of his current work on mapping landscapes, wildlife and many other phenomena.

Please join us! Evening Talks at ONRC is funded through the Rosmond Forestry Education Fund, an endowment that honors the contributions of Fred Rosmond and his family to forestry and the Forks community. Refreshments will be served and a potluck of your favorite dessert is encouraged. For more information, contact Frank Hanson at 374-4556 or fsh2@uw.edu. The ONRC is at 1455 S. Forks Ave.