Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Guest Speaker: Gary Noy

Wow! It was so interesting to learn about the Sierra Nevada. I never knew that the foothills and starting at Sacramento were considered a part of the Sierra Nevada. Its such a large span of climate for an environment. From 300 feet above sea level to thousands of feet in altitude. The Sierra Nevada have such a history-- the beginning of skiing started there. I never knew that 2/3 of all California water is from the Sierra Nevada. Thats alot of water for a largely populated state! The diversity of the environment of the Sierra Nevada was really interesting to me...but for a 600 million year old mountain range, its had time to gain diversity.

It was really interesting to learn that a lake i've been to many times now is over 3 earthquake faults and that a tidal wave that will drain the lake a move its debris will happen again in time. Incline Village, a beautiful place to visit was named after the incline that they would put logs on to transport over the mountain during the Gold Rush and the days of timbering. The idea of tahoe not being a virgin forest and being so thin because of the amount of mining that used to occur in that region is shocking to me--the trees are so thick and full it is amazing that they weren't always there. I've lived in the area my entire life and never knew these things. I have taken environmental science classes before and learned about the negative affects of mining on the environment and its fouling of water sources, but I never really learned about what hydraulic mining was. Its interesting seeing as there were so many hydraulic mine locations in the Sierra Nevada area.

The time flew by as Gary Noy was speaking about the human influence on Sierra Nevada environment, and although he only spoke for about an hour, I learned things i've never learned before living here my whole life. He was very knowlegeable on the subject and brought my attention to things i never knew about before.

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