Allegheny River Islands: Interim Report through Dec. 2011

[edfrank]

Trees and Forests of the Allegheny River Island Wilderness and Nearby Islands: Interim Report through December 2011
by Edward Frank, Dale Luthringer, Carl Harting. and Anthony Kelly

Native Tree Society Special Publication #10


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http://www.nativetreesociety.org/specia ... pt2015.pdf 15.8 MB

This report compiles the results as of December 2011 for the ongoing project of documenting forests and trees of the islands of the Allegheny River Island Wilderness and nearby islands in the middle Allegheny River in north central Pennsylvania. The islands included in this report are located in a stretch extending from the Buckaloons Recreation Area, seven miles downstream of Warren, Pennsylvania through Holeman Island, four miles downstream of Tionesta, Pennsylvania. This includes all of the islands in the Allegheny River Islands Wilderness, a number of forest service islands, and several private islands. Major islands investigated among others include, Crull's Island, Thompson's Island, Courson Island, Hemlock Island, King Island, Baker Island, and Holeman Island. At the present time some of the islands have been visited multiple times by groups of people, while others have seen only a quick scouting survey, or have not yet been visited.

The initial explorations were made by Dale Luthringer in 2003 (Luthringer 2003a). Edward Frank, Carl Harting, and Anthony Kelly joined the project in 2007 (Luthringer 2007b). This report includes photographs and general descriptions of each island visited during the field surveys. The tree and woody shrub species found on each island are listed. Tree height profiles, Rucker Height Indices, ad Rucker Girth Indices are presented for each island where sufficient measurement data was able to be collected. Background information on the geological, hydrological, archaeological, and historical settings of the individual islands and the study area in general is also included. Future plans include broadening the investigations to include other islands both upstream and downstream along the length of the Allegheny River and conducting more detailed investigations of the under sampled islands within this area.

An overview of the characteristics of the surrounding upland forest is presented as Appendix I. A preliminary scouting of Hoge Island located downstream on the Allegheny River in Franklin, Pennsylvania is presented as Appendix II. A listing of the individual trips made as part of this investigation is presented as Appendix III.

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[dbhguru]

Ed,

Congratulations! A major work of great ecological significance. I look forward to studying the report in detail.

Ed, I envy your thoroughness. You do us proud. You da man.

Bob

[bbeduhn]

Ed,
This is quite a benchmark for ENTS projects. You cannot ask for much more than this! I haven't made it through the entire report but I noticed a 15.8' silver maple that did not make it to the Crull's island list. This would pump up the RIG5 to 12.74'. I'm looking forward to reading the rest of the report.
Brian

[bbeduhn]

Whoops, I doubled up a sycamore. I come up with 12.34' for RGI 5 and 10.96' for RGI 10 for Crull's Island.

[edfrank]

Brian,

There was a conflict concerning the identity of the 15.8 girth, 76 foot high tree between the trip report and the field notes. This tree was initially left out of the document because of this conflict. I reexamined the field notes and the photographs, and the tree in question is a silver maple as indicated in the trip report write-up, and not a sycamore. I have republished the document to reflect the addition of this larger girth sycamore to the Crull's Island data. For those who downloaded the original version, a three page errata document was added that incorporates just these corrections.

errata1r.pdf

(788.92 KiB) Downloaded 275 times

Ed

[Larry Tucei]

Ed, What a detailed report. I remember when you guys visted Allegheny River Islandes back in 07 and it was a fasinating place with lots of tall trees. I read through the first link and boy was it impressive. The history and documentation you've compiled is second to none. Great job! Like Bob I'll go over the rest later again what a great report! Larry

[PAwildernessadvocate]

Ed, just so I'm clear, does this link to the full document with all of your edits included?

http://www.nativetreesociety.org/specia ... ec2011.pdf 15.8 MB

[edfrank]

Kirk,

Yes that is the full version with the correction incorporated.

Ed

[Don]

Ed
Interested in my edits?
Don

[edfrank]

Don,

Yes and no. I had worked on this and read it so often over the past year it all sort of blurred in my mind this last time so that I was reading what it was supposed to say instead of what was written. I am heavy on the background because I anticipate additional volumes focusing just on trip reports and sharing this already written material. I essentially just quoted the trip reports from individual trips as this was a format that did not require everything be rewritten. It is a format that can be used with reports in the future. So I like the structure. All of the measurements were made using feet and tenths, The target audience is generally foresters and lay people, so I opted to leave the tables as English units, and the trip reports as written in English units. I did go back and add metric equivalents in all of the introductory materials and discussions. I am not worried about typos at this point as I am ready to move on. I would appreciate you noting any major gaffs I have made.

Ed