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Explore forty-two years of field notes from the Loch Vale watershed, Rocky Mountain National Park

By Fort Collins Science Center January 6, 2025

USGS recently released 42 years (1981-2023) of scanned field notebooks from long-term research and monitoring in the Loch Vale Watershed, Rocky Mountain National Park. 

Explore the field notebooks!
map of rocky mountain national park and the loch vale watershed with a key describing features
Sources/Usage: Public Domain. View Media Details
A map of the locations of all sample sites within Loch Vale and additional long-term sites in Rocky Mountain National Park is included with the field notebook files. From: Baron, J.S., 2024, Field Notebooks from Loch Vale watershed, Rocky Mountain National Park, research from 1981 through 2023: U.S. Geological Survey data release, https://doi.org/10.5066/P1CXWAVP. 

 

 

Historically, USGS researchers recorded field observations in field notebooks, which USGS has collected and stored. These field notebooks continue to inform research. 

The field notebooks for Loch Vale watershed and other sites in Rocky Mountain National Park include sample collection type by date for long-term biogeochemical and ecological monitoring that took place from 1983-2023 in order to ask questions about ecosystem structure and function and how mountain ecosystems respond to atmospheric deposition, climate variation, and human impact.

Cataloging the field notebooks was supported by a grant from the USGS National Geological and Geophysical Data Preservation Program (NGGDPP). 

Loch Vale Notebook Cover Loch Vale Watershed Field Notebook Entry from 12/14/87 Loch Vale Watershed Field Notebook Entry from 8/29/19 Loch Vale Watershed Field Notebook Entry from 3/2/10 Loch Vale Watershed Field Notebook Entry from 3/25/97
Sources/Usage: Public Domain. View Media Details
Sample field notebook entries from data collection and equipment maintenance for long term monitoring in the Loch Vale Watershed, Rocky Mountain National Park. Screenshots from notebooks released here: https://doi.org/10.5066/P1CXWAVP.

 

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