Forests on EARTH Magazine

Down to Earth With: Pat Pringle

Tue, 27 Jan 2015 09:24:18 -0500

Pat Pringle at Henderson Inlet, Puget Sound, where he and colleagues have sampled submerged trees. Credit: Michael Polenz, Washington State Department of Natural Resources.

After finishing a master’s degree in geology at the University of Akron in 1982, Pat Pringle left the relative flatlands of Ohio’s Allegheny Plateau and went west to pursue his passion. More specifically, he went northwest, to the U.S. Geological Survey’s (USGS) Cascades Volcano Observatory, lured by the steaming vents and layered debris flows of the recently awakened giant, Mount St. Helens. He was smitten.

Policy in the Field: U.S. fire policy in the wake of catastrophic fire seasons

Tue, 07 Aug 2012 08:25:35 -0400

Somebody turn down the heat!

Almost every region of the U.S. was on fire at some point in June. The fourth-hottest June on record in the United States, June 2012 also rounded out the hottest 12-month period since record-keeping began in the U.S. in the 1890s. July was the single hottest ever recorded.

Map reveals height of the world's forests

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 06:41:58 -0500

Calapooya Mountains as viewed from Fairview Peak Lookout in the Umpqua National Forest in Oregon. U.S. Forest Service

The Amazon Basin cover most of the width of South America (delineated in yellow). New research on global forest canopies helps quantify the amount of carbon the Amazon rainforest might hold. NASA

Amazon rainforest in the upper Amazon basin in Peru. Shao, Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0

Satellite maps can show everything from city blocks to inaccessible mountain peaks from the comfort of our living rooms. Now, they can show us yet another dimension of the natural world: the heights of the world’s forests.