RL4 Guide Manual
River-Lab 4
GUIDE BACKGROUND MATERIAL
I. Water Cycle
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The water cycle describes the movement of water through Earth’s oceans, land
(including its bodies of water), and atmosphere.
Since it is a cycle, it has no starting point. We’ll pick the ocean to start the explanation.
Most of Earth’s water (96.5%) is stored in the oceans as salt water.
The sun heats the water in the oceans.
Some of the water evaporates (evaporation: changing from liquid to a vapor) into the air.
The air currents take the vapor up into the atmosphere.
The sun also heats the land, causing water to evaporate from the soil, the surface bodies
of water (lakes, ponds, wetlands, rivers, and streams) and from plants.
Evaporation from plants is called transpiration. Transpiration, in addition to referring to
the evaporation of water off leaves of plants, includes the process of plants drawing up
water from the soil through their roots, sending it out to all parts of the plant for growth.
Water that is not used for growth is released through pores (small holes called stomata)
on the underside of leaves. This process helps keep the plant cool. It also helps water
return to the atmosphere.
The air is cooler in the upper atmosphere than closer to the Earth. The cooler
temperature causes the vapor to condense into water droplets (condensation) and the
droplets come together to form a cloud.
With further cooling, droplets in the clouds move close together. When they touch they
join together and become bigger droplets.
When the water droplets are heavy enough, they fall out of the clouds as precipitation.
Rain is the usual form of precipitation but the droplets can freeze and fall as snow.
The precipitation falls back into the ocean, into surface bodies of water, or onto the land
(and plants).
The precipitation falling on the land either runs over the ground (surface run-off) into
lakes or rivers or soaks into the ground (infiltration).
Water in the ground is called groundwater and the area where groundwater is found and
stored is called the groundwater system.
Precipitation as snow can accumulate in the ice caps or in glaciers. When the ice and
snow melt (snowmelt), that water also can either run-off the land into a surface body of
water or soak into the ground.
Some groundwater soaks deep into the ground (and stays there); other ground water
stored in spaces between rocks and gravel can come back to the surface as springs
(groundwater discharge).
The water that falls into the surface bodies can be stored as fresh water in lakes and
ponds (freshwater storage) or can be part of the flowing system in rivers and streams.
The surface run-off also becomes either part of the freshwater storage or is added to the
rivers, the flowing system. Most of the water in rivers eventually makes its way back to
the ocean—where we (arbitrarily) started the cycle.
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RL4 Guide Manual – Guide Background
II. Basin Development of Eastern North America
Earth is between 4.6 and 5 billion years old. Very little is known of Earth’s earliest crust.
Due to constant active forces within the Earth, the surface is continually changing. These
changes gradually produced a livable surface. Water has played and continues to play a
major role in shaping Earth’s crust through erosion and the development of soils.
A. Geological events that shaped the basins of eastern North America.
1. The age of a basin system (river basin system) dates from the establishment of its
boundaries. Eastern North American basin boundaries were established by
continental collision that began roughly 350 million years ago.
2. Plate Tectonic Theory and Continental Collision
a. Accumulation of evidence from various scientific disciplines substantiates the
plate theory of Earth's crustal structure. This theory explains how the mountain
ranges of eastern North America were uplifted.
b. The Earth consists of three main layers: the core, mantle, and crust. The crust is
broken into sections, called plates—some major and others relatively small. Our
continents and oceans ride on those plates.
c. The plates move because the mantle is partially molten; heart currents move the
plates, sometimes pushing them apart and sometimes pushing them toward each
other. This plate movement is called “Continental Drift” because the continents
move with the plates.
d. At various times in geological history, these plates have collided. For example,
approximately 350 million years ago North America, on the American Plate,
collided with North Africa, on the African Plate. Movement of the African Plate
crunched North Africa into North America in a great "crash-up" or continental
collision that lasted about 150 million years. This crash-up was a long-lasting,
slow-motion grinding or crunching where the plate edges came together. The
collision welded the edge of the North African continent onto the eastern side of
North America. Heat currents (in the molten mantle) caused the American Plate
to reverse direction about 200 million years ago. As North America started
moving toward its present position, part of North Africa went with it. The
American Plate reached the present location of North America 98 to 65 million
years ago, before the planet cooled and glaciation began to occur.
e. The tremendous force of this crunching of the North African/North American
plates caused the edge material to be thrust up. Over a span of 150 million years,
the edges of the continents were crunched up into very high steep mountains the
whole length of the North American eastern seaboard, roughly from Nova Scotia
to Alabama (Appalachians, etc.).
f. The squeezing pressure from this collision also caused thrust downward. Much
more material was pushed down than was pushed up. The material that was
pushed down is called the “roots” of the mountains (or bedrock).
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© 2003 Mill River Wetland Committee, Inc.
RL4 Guide Manual – Guide Background
Fig. 1
g. These mountains, reaching up as high as 15,000 feet, began to be worn away as
soon as they were thrust up. This erosion continued for roughly 199 million years.
Erosion continued down into the roots so that by the time of the last glacial
period, the reduced summits of these former giants were below what had been
sea-level at the time of the continental collision! This erosion carved new basins
in the bedrock. Our present hills and mountains are features eroded out of the
upper part of the ancient mountain roots and form the boundaries of the river
basins we live in today. (See Fig. 1, page 2.) Each basin is drained by one main
river and by any number of tributaries and feeder streams.
B. Glaciation—Refinement of river basins
1. Since the Earth cooled, there have many periods of glaciation. These colder periods
occurred because the Earth's climate changed. Scientists theorize that two factors
occurred at the same time to cause these colder periods: first, Earth’s orbit became
more circular that elliptical; second, the tilt of the Earth on its axis became more
vertical. When the orbit is elliptical and the tilt less vertical, the Earth comes closer to
the Sun in the summer part of its orbit providing seasonal warming. With the circular
orbit and closer to vertical tilt, summers were not warm enough and snow began to
accumulate in polar regions. The accumulation of snow under pressure turned the
snow into ice. As more and more ice built up over thousands of years, a huge blanket
of ice formed at each pole. Eventually, the weight of many feet of ice caused friction
(heat) against the land. This heat caused the ice to melt underneath and to crack and
shear within its mass, enabling the glacier to flow forward. Ice continued to be added
even as the glacier moved.
The last period of glaciation involved four glacial advances over the northern part of
America, starting about 1 million years ago. Only the most recent, called the
Wisconsin glaciation (Wurm in Europe), which began about 70,000 years ago,
reached the coast of southern New England. The massive ice sheet, over a mile high
in interior New England, was still 40 feet high at its terminus in Southern New
England. By about 20,000 years ago this ice blanket had reached the middle of Long
Island and was beginning to melt. By 15,000 years ago New England was free of
glacial ice. By about 11,000 to 10,000 years ago the ice had melted back to its
present limits at the North Pole.
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RL4 Guide Manual – Guide Background
2. In its travels, the glacier picked up soil and plant material including whole sides of
mountains and whole forests (anything in its way) from the basin’s surfaces. The ice
was filled with this soil and plant rubble scraped and gouged from the terrain over
which it passed. All soil material, from chunks of mountains to finest silts and rock
powder, was incorporated into the great mass of the moving ice and was deposited in
one way or another where it melted.
Glaciation did not change the major land contours defining basins that continental
collision and 199 million years of erosion had established. But the glaciers did refine
basins by carving them deeper and by depositing soil in them. This glacial scouring
and redistribution of soil materials within existing basins was of great significance.
3. When the Earth’s climate finally began to warm, the resulting glacial melt-water
formed enormous rivers. These huge rivers were loaded with the sand, gravel, and
rocks that had been incorporated into the glacial ice. Some of the heaviest rock was
dropped right away. The meltstreams continued to carry the rest of the material
further downstream, sorting the material by weight as they deposited it (River-Lab
Grade 3 concept). This meant that the deposits in any one place were generally of the
same weight and size. The entire coast of southern New England is a great glacial
“outwash plain” of soils deposited by glacial melt-waters of the Wisconsin glacial
period. In Fairfield, Connecticut, the ends of the old rivers were buried in gravel.
Subsequent erosion and deposition has covered over that gravel with lighter soils and
in some places plants have grown.
4. Erosion and deposition by glaciers, as they formed, moved, melted, refroze and
finally melted, often determined the paths of rivers within their basins. Glaciation
persisted for thousands of years. During this time, there were periods when the
Earth’s temperature warmed, causing the front of the glacier to melt a bit. At such
times, whatever was carried at the glacier’s leading edge—rocks, plants, soil—was
dumped in a jumble by the melting ice. When the temperature plunged, the glacier’s
front edge froze again, and the ice sheet moved forward, compacting some of the
deposited material into hard hilly mounds (drumlins). Over thousands of years this
advance and retreat of the glacier changed the basin landscape dramatically. Some
river valleys were scoured to u-shape from a v-shape. New valleys were scoured out
within basins. Glaciation also changed the course of rivers. In some cases, a hill that
the river had to go around was removed. In others, new obstacles had been left in the
rivers’ paths forcing them to find new ways around the obstructions.
In the process of resorting and re-depositing glacial material (especially gravels) in its
new floodplain a river would often block its own path, causing it to wind, or meander
abruptly. In some cases such deposition was the basis for the formation of a wetland
along the river. Subsequent flooding of the river carried fine silts out over the area,
encouraging development of the wetland.
Since this glacial revision of their basins and river courses, rivers such as the Mill
River, carrying material brought down to them by their tributaries, have continued to
carve their way down through this glacial sand and gravel, creating “terraces” along
their sides. As routes have been influenced by drumlin or other deposited hill
construction and encounters with basin rock outcrops, each river has continued its
pattern of deposition. Some river flooding has carried finer soils up and onto these
terraces, building and sometimes changing the character of that land.
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© 2004 Mill River Wetland Committee, Inc.
RL4 Guide Manual – Guide Background
Major periods in Earth's history
Eon/Era
Azoic Eon
Archeozoic
Eon
Proterozoic
Eon
Paleozoic Era
Mesozoic Era
Cenozoic Era
(Dating of geological time is approximate.)
Billion (bya) or
Biology
million
(mya)
years ago
4.6 bya
No life known to exist.
to
3.8 bya
First life forms appear in the
3.8 bya
seas.
One celled marine
organisms: blue-green algae,
to
bacteria. There was no ozone
layer to protect any life on land
2.5 bya
from the ultraviolet rays of the
sun.
2.5 bya
First eukaryotes (ancestors of
animals, plants, fungi, and
protists) and multi-cellular
to
organisms appear:
colonial
algae
and
soft-bodied
invertebrates. Oxygen builds
550 mya
up
in
atmosphere from
photosynthesis
of
marine
organisms.
550 mya
Explosion of numbers of
species. First fish and reptiles,
rise of amphibians and insects.
to
Great ferns, horsetails, and
conifer forests (subsequently
turned to coal by pressure of
240 mya
being buried under seas of
mud.) Huge extinction at end
of era.
240 mya
Age
of
reptiles
(reptile
dominance). Rise and fall of
to
dinosaurs.
First birds and
mammals. Rise and eventual
65 mya
dominance of flowering plants.
65 mya to present
Age of mammals as dominant
form of life. 1.8 mya first
humans.
Geology
Earth’s crust cooled and
solidified. Solar system still
forming.
Rocks and continental plates
began to form. Atmosphere
was methane, ammonia, and
other gases, toxic to most
life.
Volcanoes deposited much
material
onto
surface.
Continents merged to one
supercontinent,
Rodinia
which then broke apart (no
resemblance to present-day
land masses).
Several periods of glaciation.
Much volcanic activity. High
sea levels (N. America under
shallow seas.)
Continents
merged
into
single
supercontinent, Pangaea.
Relatively warm climate.
Pangea
breaks
apart,
continents look like modern
day forms. Continued high
level of volcanic activity.
Cycles of glaciation. Last
glaciation called Wisconsin
Advance (Wurm in Europe).
Continents located in present
positions. Lesser volcanic
activity.
C. The Underground Water System (UWS) Formation
1. The basin bedrock (roots) of the mountains formed during the collision was not a
solid mass. The period of sustained crunching caused the bedrock root material to
crack. The root material was a mixture of different kinds of rock. Some root material
rock, such as sandstone was porous. The fractures and pores in some of the bedrock
provide space for water underground. Where the cracks and pores are connected,
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RL4 Guide Manual – Guide Background
these spaces allow passage of water underground, sometimes to an outlet such as a
spring. This arrangement was the beginning of an underground water system, but not
much water could be stored in the cracked bedrock.
2. Basins that are filled with sorted glacial deposition, however, have an additional
underground storage system on top of whatever bedrock arrangement they had as a
result of continental collision. This “stratified drift” (layered, sorted gravels and
sands) is excellent aquifer material for storage and movement of underground water.
Glacial meltstreams sorted gravel transported by the glacial ice into deposits of
similar sized gravel. When gravels of the same size are packed together there is more
space between the individual stones than in an unsorted mix. Thus, sorted glacial
deposition provides even more space for underground water storage and movement.
3. At a certain depth below the surface of a basin, the fractures and pores of materials
are too compressed by the weight of everything above to allow water to move. This
compressed area acts like a bowl under the basin, containing its underground supply.
III. Relationship of Basin Absorbency to Underground Water System and to Basin Productivity
A. Areas of the basin that hold water, promoting underground water storage, include ponds,
lakes, feeder streams and brooks, wetlands, woodlands, and ground covers. These
holding and absorbent areas keep water from running off the basin surfaces, allowing it
time to percolate underground. Overall basin holding and absorption prevents water from
running directly into the main rivers and out of the basin.
1. All the plant communities that have developed in all parts of the basin help control
runoff of excess water and increase underground water supply in many ways. The
leafy canopy of trees and shrubs intercept raindrops and snow. Plants along stream
banks slow floodwater. The tons of plant on the forest floor (leaves, twigs, etc.)
actually absorb much of the water that falls on it. In addition, billions of “mini-dams”
formed by plant debris on a forest floor halt much of the flow of rain or melting snow
over it. The branch that gets stuck in a small brook collects other sticks, leaves, etc.,
that form another kind of small dam that slows the flow of excess runoff and allows
time for absorption. Water that is detained or retained may seep into the underground
water system. Sometimes even a river or stream bed has a bottom fracture (leak) that
allows water to enter the underground water system.
2. Wetlands are especially helpful in managing a basin’s runoff.
Wetlands are low-lying, gently sloped, broad expanses with wetland vegetation. This
type of structure allows room to accommodate much additional water. Wetlands
seldom overflow significantly. Ones that are intimately connected to a river or stream
handle runoff in two ways: runoff can flow directly into the wetland thus protecting
the river from excess; and a river swollen by runoff can spread some of its excess
flow into an adjacent wetland. In addition, in temporary and seasonal wetlands that
are not fully saturated, the partly decomposed wetland plant material in wetland soil
can also absorb water.
B. Underground water storage benefits the living river basin system in two ways. Stored
water helps maintain optimum water levels for basin productivity via flow to the surface
from springs. Storage capacity helps prevent excessive run-off of water to flowing
streams and the main river, again promoting productivity.
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© 2004 Mill River Wetland Committee, Inc.
RL4 Guide Manual – Guide Background
All the runoff-retarding influences of the vegetative covering of a basin determine a
basin’s capacity to maintain and protect its life. Slowing the flow of excess runoff from
heavy precipitation (and/or thaw) has two vital effects:
1. Giving more water a chance to percolate down through topsoil into the underground
system ensures that all surface bodies of water in the basin will stay at levels
necessary to sustain optimum variety of life. Most basins are subject to drought in
some part of their yearly cycle. In such periods a properly functioning underground
water system (UWS) is critical. If there is stored water in the UWS to flow back to
the surface via springs life in the basin’s surface waters will not be reduced and the
basin can stay at optimum levels of productivity. If there is no water in the UWS to
replenish surface bodies of water, this central supporting structure of the basin’s
living system will be weakened, resulting in decreased productivity.
2. Lessening the speed at which water reaches and accumulates in the basin’s flowing
system. This means that a flooding river has less power to erode itself in the height of
each flood. In other words, each flood’s “peak” (highest levels of streams and/or
main river in a given flood) is lower and therefore reduced in carrying power and
erosive force. Water’s-edge or shoreline communities of the basin are most
susceptible to erosion but vital to the health of the basin. Shorelines, where air, land
and water meet, are the most productive areas of Earth. Destruction of shoreline plant
and animal communities due to basin water system instability can result in loss of
these vitally-productive margins—seriously reducing the basin’s living system.
Because the shorelines of the Earth, where air, land, and water interface, are the most
productive areas of the Earth, the river system of each basin is the productive core--or
ecological matrix--of the living basin system. The function of wetlands in helping to
protect these vital edges is thus of great importance to life.
C. Plants vital role in the system
 The focus for this unit is the concept that all animals, whether they eat a plant or not,
are dependent on a plant for their food energy.
 Habitats provide places where plants and animals live and get everything they need to
survive.
 One of those basic needs is food.
 Many food chains start in the water’s-edge habitats of rivers and streams or ponds and
lakes and spread out over the whole basin.
 Food chains start with plants or algae (photosynthetic organisms) but for plants and
algae to grow, they need the sun’s energy. So the sun is always included somehow
when depicting a food chain.
 Plants and algae are called “producers” because they produce (make) their own food
using the sun’s energy.
 In the process of photosynthesis, plants and algae use light energy to make
carbohydrates, which are converted to chemical energy and used by the plant to grow.
 Animals are called “consumers” because they cannot make their own food and must
consume (eat) other organisms (either plant or animal) to get energy to live.
 Therefore, all organisms are directly or indirectly dependent on plants and/or
algae for survival.
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RL4 Guide Manual – Guide Background
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Some animals eat only plants or algae (these animals are called herbivores); some
animals eat only another animal (these are carnivores); while other animals eat both
plants and animals (these are omnivores).
The first link of a food chain is a producer (plant or algae).
The second link is an herbivore (eats plants or algae).
The third level is a carnivore (eats an herbivore).
Some food chains have more links. The next link might be a larger carnivore.
When depicting the food chain, the convention is to draw an arrow from the organism
eaten toward the eater. The direction of the arrow shows that “the eaten” is giving
food energy TO “the eater”.
Most food chains have several links.
Example: algae →clam →small fish →bird.
Some chains can be up to five links but most are only three or four.
As you can imagine, food chains overlap with each other, forming food webs.
D. System Balance
1. Numerous forces operating on the face of the Earth act periodically to denude basins
or form new bare areas. Major geological events remove vegetation in different
ways. Baring of slopes occurred repeatedly in the long process of continental
collision. Glaciation left scoured, un-vegetated landscapes. Volcanic eruptions
create new bare slopes as they bury forested basins with mud slides or volcanic ash.
Forest fires caused by lightening may remove not only the productive canopy, but
also absorbent layers of the forest floor. These and other events are part of the
Earth’s general dynamics ever renewing the landscape.
2. Man views such natural events as destructive because man has inherited a productive
environment. Dominating the Earth in an era which may be interglacial, man reaps
the benefit of billions of years of soil production, shaping and eroding of basins to
gentler contours, development of underground water systems, and an infinite array of
other supporting factors at this point in the Earth’s maturity. Included in this array of
benefits is the balance of living organisms—plant and animal—composing each
basin’s living system.
IV. The Impact of Man on the Basin System
The existence of people also depends on this balance. Since the continental collision 350
million years ago, basins over the face of Earth evolved into self-maintaining, living systems.
However, people do not always understand the basin’s own system of management nor
recognize that tampering with the basin’s health is tampering with the health of people in that
basin. In fact, human evolutionary span—over the last 4 million years—has been marked by
an ever-increasing effort to manage our environment. In doing so, people have become less
and less aware that they are part of the system that nurtures and supports all life, including
themselves. See supplement for historical perspective.
V.
Man’s Impact—Modern Day
When absorbent areas of a basin are covered over, runoff remains on the surface, quickly
running into the flowing system which can cause excessive erosion, siltation, and flooding.
The underground water system also then has reduced capacity to replenish lakes, rivers, and
streams during times of low precipitation.
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© 2004 Mill River Wetland Committee, Inc.
RL4 Guide Manual – Guide Background
The ways in which we resurface land can cause water from rain or melting snow and ice to
become fast runoff. Instead of being absorbed into the UWS, this fast runoff runs over the
basin surfaces into all the tributaries and main river:
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Deforested areas (areas where the trees and shrubs have been removed) lack the
leafy canopy to catch and slow rainwater on its way to the ground, and lack the
spongy woodland floor that could allow the water dripping on it to seep into the
underground water system.
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Paved or concrete areas (patios, sidewalks, driveways, roads, parking lots, etc.)
regularly replace natural areas and their layers of absorbent, rotting plant debris.
Water runs off these hard surfaces very quickly. These areas no longer allow water to
seep into the ground to the underground water system. Many of these areas would
have allowed seepage into the underground water system.
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Cultivated lawns also encourage fast runoff and discourage absorption. The millions
of little blades of grass are flattened by rainfall, forming a smooth green sheet that
water runs off quickly. City planners call lawns “green paving”. In modern times,
millions of lawns have replaced low leafy natural growth and the absorbent rotting
plant debris that collects around it. This natural cover would normally catch and slow
down the water, giving it a chance to seep into the ground.
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Modern storm water management—our roofs, gutters, downspouts and drainage
pipes—quickly collect and send rainwater through storm water pipes directly to rivers
and stream. Before the development of storm water systems, water flowing over the
ground was slowed and absorbed and held by little piles of natural debris, giving the
water a chance to seep into the ground.
Unfortunately people continue to alter the basin’s land without regard of the impact to the
living river basin system’s health. Most people do not realize the impact of their decisions on
the basin and their own health. Add all the impacts together and the system becomes
unbalanced. There are topics that appear in the news regularly which illustrate the imbalance
and impact on humans—how to control the mosquito population, especially the ones that
cause disease, and how to control the deer overpopulation. Both these problems indicate an
imbalance in the living system that is a result of man resurfacing land in ways that keep
water from getting underground.
The health of each basin system is still the basis of a livable environment for man—whether
a person raises food in his or her basin’s soil or is nourished and provided for with products
from other, even distant, basins. One commodity distant basins cannot provide is the quality
of life in that person’s own environment. Only a basin in balance can provide a truly livable
environment.
© 2004 Mill River Wetland Committee, Inc.
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RL4 Guide Manual – Guide Background
Bibliography:
“Water,” Science Service Bulletin, Doubleday Science Program, Garden City, L.I.
THE GEOLOGY OF CONNECTICUT, Dena Humphreys, MFCYM Bulletin, 1970 (Nature
Center for Environmental Activities, Westport, CT)
DOWN TO EARTH, Croneis and Krumbein, U. of Chicago Press, 1955
STORY OF GEOLOGY, Golden Press, 1976
INTRODUCTION TO COLLEGE GEOLOGY, 2nd Edition, Holmes, MacMillan, NY, 1962
“Nature and Science,” Vol. 6, #1, Sept. 16, 1968. “Is the Great Ice Age Over?” Natural History
Press, American Museum of Natural History
THE NEW ENGLAND INDIANS, The Globe Pequot Press, Chester, CT, 1978
INDIANS, Thomas Y. Crowell, New York, 1979
CHANGES IN THE LAND, William Cronin, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1983
“Geological Time.”
http://cas.bellarmine.edutietjen/Ec&Ev_Distance_learning/Hell/geolpgic_time.htm
Col, Jeananda. “Geologic Time Scale.” 1997
htpp://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/Geologictime.html
Carr, Steven M. “Outline of Historical Evolution.” 2002
htpp://www.mun.ca/biology/scarr/Geological_Eras_Periods_&_Epochs.htm
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. “Wetland Primer.”
http://northeast.fws.gov/wetlandfest/primer.html#wetlands
“What is a Wetland.” http://www.wetland.org/educ_wet_func.htm
“What is a Wetland.” http://www.psybergate.com/wetfix/ShareNet/Shareindex.htm
Diamond, Jared. "Spacious Skies and Tilted Axes." Natural History Magazine, May 1994, as
found in "The Spread of Agriculture,"
http://www.mc.maricopa.edu/dept/d10/asb2003/lifeways/hg_ag/agspread.html
Guisepi, Robert. "Agriculture and the Origins of Civilization: The Neolithic Revolution."
http://www.ragz-international.com/agriculture.htm
Price, T. Douglas and Anne B. Gebauer. "Last Hunters--First Farmers."
http://ancientneareast.tripod.com/149.htm/
Schulz, Emily and Robert Lavenda. Anthropology: A Perspective on the Human Condition
(textbook) as found in "The Consequences of Domestication and Sedentism."
http://www.primitivism.com/sedentism.htm
Consultants:
Dr. John Nicholas, Geology Department, Univ. of Bridgeport, CT
Edmund Swigart, American Indian Archeological Institute, Washington, CT
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© 2004 Mill River Wetland Committee, Inc.
RL4 Guide Manual – Guide Background
Suggested Reading
THE WEB OF LIFE, and MAN IN THE WEB OF LIFE, John H. Storer, Signet, 1953, 1968
THE LIFE OF RIVERS AND STREAMS, Robert Usinger, McGraw-Hill, 1967
THE LIFE OF THE MARSH, William A. Niering, McGraw Hill, 1966
WATER, Life Science Series, Luna B. Leopold and K. S. Davis, 1966
THE FACE OF NORTH AMERICA, Peter Farb, Harper & Row, 1963
THE EARTH, Life Nature Library, Arthur Bieser, 1963
THE EARTH BENEATH US, Mather, Random House, 1964
THE RESTLESS EARTH, Nigel Calder, Viking, 1972
DOWNSTREAM, John Bardach, Harper & Row, 1964
STREAMS, LAKES, AND PONDS, Robert E. Coker, Harper Torchback, 1954
ECOLOGY OF INLAND WATERS AND ESTUARIES, George K. Reid, Van Nostrand
Reinhard Co., 1961
September, 1984 (revised ‘72’79, ’81, ’82, 83, ’02)
jts/MRWSG 9/81
(Revised 10/82, 10/83, and 10/84
ed 9/2004
ed 2006
© 2004 Mill River Wetland Committee, Inc.
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