Limestone Suiseki
Nosing out of the terra rossa soil, a limestone boulder with lichen and unusual weathering…
tuart dieback
A picture from our excursion to a property at the edge of Lake Clifton. This tree stump shows the shallow root system of the Tuart. I’m not sure whether this one fell over or was ‘pushed’ but at the same time tuarts in Yalgorup have suffered severe decline.
“The Yalgorup region represents the largest unfragmented area of tuart woodland in WA and looking at historical satellite images we can tell that the severe decline started in the early 1990s in Yalgorup, but that decline is now escalating rapidly and is spreading to other areas,’’ Mr Barber said.
Paul Barber from the Tuart Health Research Group (2007) http://www.sciencewa.net.au/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1650&Itemid=587
Phytophthora multivora has now been identified as a major factor in tuart dieback. However it seems that tree decline is a complex combination of other potential factors such as weeds, grazing, climate change, increased salinity in groundwater and insect attack.
plastic complexity
Thrown casually over discarded brush, this knot of bailer twine was on land where every skerrick of vegetation had been cleared for grazing — right down to the fenceline on Lake Clifton.
Mass flowering brings a ray of hope for the Yalgorup…
As reported in Science WA news:
For the first time in 15 years, sections of the tuart woodland within the national park, just south of Mandurah, have produced prolific amounts of buds and flowers which will eventually bear fruit in time for the Centre’s 2011 seed collection program.
An exciting mass flowering raises serious questions about forest health / Image: Istockphoto
While the flowering has received a jubilant welcome from the Centre and its team of volunteer seed collectors, senior research fellow Dr Katinka Ruthrof said it has also prompted questions about the overall health of the forest.“We know from past research that tuarts in the Yalgorup region have been in decline for quite some time so to find an area with some indication of life is a very unexpected surprise,” she says.
“It is difficult to tell if this is a sign that the forest is slowly repairing itself or whether these trees are producing flowers as a final attempt at reproduction.
“Those trees that are flowering are definitely healthier than those that are not but as long as there are still trees in the area that are dying, the population is by no means past its decline phase…”
For news about seed collection by Ruthrof’s team see http://www.sciencewa.net.au/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3103:mass-flowering-brings-a-ray-of-hope-for-the-yalgorup&catid=192:News&Itemid=200073
old corrugated iron near Lake Clifton
This iron was part of a fence to stop rabbits (I think) around a Lake Clifton property. Different sheets had different vestiges of blue paint leading me to think long linear lakes and transverse dunes.
The Pied Oystercatcher, Haematopus longirostris
the mister potatohead of the bird world
peep a peep
peep a peep
peep a peep
peep a peep
peep a peep
peep a peep
Lake Clifton Festival
| April 18, 2010 | ||
| 10:00 am | to | 4:00 pm |
Lake Clifton Festival
Sunday 18 April
from 10 am
In the grounds of Cape Bouvard Wines – via Lakeside Parkway or Clifton Downs Road.
Bring the family, bring the picnic basket, buy a bottle of vino/lunch and enjoy the music, art, walks and surrounds…
April 18 – Lake Clifton Festival
A message from Mandurah:
Let’s get passionate about
a silent, patient, unique
and quite extraordinarily beautiful space in Mandurah
that was recently recognised by one of the world’s foremost landscape writers as the most spectacular place he has ever visited.
About the fact that one of its natural features* created the very first oxygen molecules on earth – without which you and I would not be here today.
About its aboriginal mythology – created by the female waughal whilst her male counterpart created the Swan River.
About its threatened ecology* – recently listed as ‘critically endangered’ by the Federal Minister for the Environment – a wake-up call if ever there was one.
Join
artists, environmental groups, colleagues, musicians and local residents
and get passionate about
Lake Clifton
at the
Lake Clifton Festival
Sunday 18 April
from 10 am
In the grounds of Cape Bouvard Wines – via Lakeside Parkway or Clifton Downs Road.
Bring the family, bring the picnic basket, buy a bottle of vino/lunch and enjoy the music, art, walks and surrounds…
*thrombolites – very rare and now endangered
Please distribute this notice to your networks – thank you
Jane Tillson, Arts & Cultural Development Officer, City of Mandurah – 9550 3842
Download flyer Lake Clifton Flyer
Lake Richmond microbialites
We disturbed a spoonbill roosting on the thrombolites. Musk duck calls out his territory in the water nearby.
These were quite squishy to the touch and birds had been pooing on them.
Close up of one of the lithified stones. I think this has been turned over when they dug the drain. It shows a non stratified texture. The brown fibres are fresh material dried on it from the last time the lake level was high. These whitish rocks are higher up the shore.
pelican day
On Monday (8 February) I visited Lake Richmond, Lake Walyungup and Lake Clifton. At each site I saw pelicans in the sky.
Lake Clifton thrombolites declared a critically endangered community
Well are they dead or are they alive? There have certainly been considerable changes in the microbial communities in the thrombolites in the last 10 years. Yesterday the Lake Clifton thrombolites were listed as critically endangered under the Federal EPBC Act under the following criteria
- Criterion 2 as critically endangered because its geographic distribution is very restricted and the nature of its distribution makes it likely that the action of a threatening process could cause it to be lost in the immediate future;
- Criterion 3 as critically endangered because the loss or decline of functionally important species is very severe;
- Criterion 4 as critically endangered because the reduction in integrity of critical ecological processes is very severe; and
- Criterion 5 as endangered because the rate of continuing detrimental change is severe and is projected to continue in the immediate future.
“The Lake Clifton thrombolite community is subject to numerous threats, most of which originate outside the ecological community itself. Scientific research suggests that there has been significant environmental degradation at Lake Clifton since at least the early 1990s (Moore, 1990; WA CALM, 2004a). This is despite the Peel-Yalgorup System being recognised as a wetland of international importance, and Lake Clifton being situated within the Yalgorup National Park (Moore, 1990).
…the thrombolite community occupies much of the eastern edge of Lake Clifton, which in turn forms the eastern boundary of the Yalgorup National Park. This means that the thrombolites are adjoined by private rural and rural-residential land holdings, which contributes significantly to the level of threat they face (Moore, 1990). The vegetation buffer zone between these properties and the foreshore of Lake Clifton is considered inadequate (Davies and Lane, 1996). The greatest current threat to the ongoing growth and survival of the Lake Clifton thrombolite community appears to be increased salinity due to increased groundwater extraction and altered groundwater flows, followed by increased nutrient levels coming from adjacent agricultural and rural-residential properties. If Lake Clifton becomes permanently hypersaline, it is likely that the patterns of thrombolite growth, faunal diversity and waterbird useage will also be affected. It is possible that the international scientific significance of the Lake will also be lost as a direct result (Knott et al., 2003). Current studies suggest that the change to a permanent state of hypersalinity may have already occurred (Alexander and John, 2008a).
Pollution, changes to surrounding vegetation, sedimentation and the introduction of fauna not native to the area also negatively impact on the ecological community (WA CALM, 2004a). People visiting Lake Clifton also directly impact by crushing or trampling the thrombolite structures, which are very fragile. Finally, possible impacts of climate change must also be considered.”
What is the shape of ecosystem(s)?
Taken at sunrise at Lake Hayward it represents to me the complexity of ecosystems which I wish to convey in the final work.
Lake Clifton Thrombolites
Central to the sixth shore project is the actual thrombolites themselves. This is taken from the boardwalk.
Bruce Mowson’s birdland
Unfortunately no image but an interesting project:
Birdland is an immersive sound work. Set in a 3D game construction space, visuals are minimalised and sound is maximalised in order to experiment with sensations, perceptions and flows of listening. Within the space, the user glides freely around sculptural, architectural and topological formations. The project aims to develop new techniques for composing sound and new ideas about the significance of listening, through a reading of Deleuzian and Lacaning texts in conjunction with playful and intuitive exploration. An iteration of the work presented for the Time Transcendence Performance conference is an early prototype created for the Design Research Institute’s Virtual Reality Centre.
Project partners: Intervention through Art: RMIT Design Research Institute, Firelight Technologies.
Thunder and lightning on Banks Island
Banks Island, Canada – Expanded Ranges. The Inuit now regularly see species common much further south that previously were never seen on the island, such as robins and barn swallows. Thunder and lightning, never before recorded in Inuit oral history, have also been reported.
greenwash and blackwash?
Wash and Spin Cycle Threats to Tropical Biodiversity by Lian Pin Koh, Jaboury Ghazoul, Rhett A. Butler, William F. Laurance, Navjot S. Sodhi, Javier Mateo-Vega, and Corey J. A. Bradshaw
An article arguing that both sides of the environmental debate can put out gloss, misleading or unsubstantiated claims about tropical deforestation. Greenwash is corporate, but exaggerated claims by green groups are blackwash: “We as scientists have a particular responsibility to evaluate critically and objectively the claims made by both parties, while being mindful of our own personal biases.”
I wish it were that simple.
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/122681415/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0
Biotropica Volume 42 Issue 1, Pages 67 – 71 Published Online: 10 Nov 2009
Hydrobotanics Symposium 17 November
| November 17, 2009 | ||
| 9:00 am | to | 6:00 pm |
A symposium hosted by ICLL and Createc on the twin subjects of water and plant life in Western Australia.
For its end-of-year symposium, the International Centre for Landscape and Language (ICLL) at ECU’s Mount Lawley Campus is pleased to present a distinguished array of biologists, geographers, writers, artists, and other creative and scientific people.
The symposium will showcase innovative, interdisciplinary, and arts-based environmental research being done by staff, alumnae, and postgraduate researchers at ECU. Presenters include Rod Giblett, Hugo Bekle, Nandi Chinna, Mary-Louise McDermott, Holly Story, Annamaria Weldon, Perdita Phillips, Nien Schwarz, and Gregory Pryor. We are also pleased to announce two distinguished keynote speakers.
November 2009 marks the 150th anniversary of the publishing of Darwin’s Origin of the Species. Patrick Armstrong, a Senior Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Western Australia, will present ‘Charles Darwin’s Other Islands: The Voyage of the Beagle, Other Than the Galapagos’. The voyage that Charles Darwin made on His Majesty’s Surveying Sloop Beagle, 1831-1836, provided the basis of much of his later scientific work. This talk will concentrate on the importance of the 40 or so islands that he visited – in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans – and his approach to the observations he made on them, in an attempt to show how they influenced his later intellectual development.
Patrick has made a special study of Darwin’s life, work and influence, using both archival methods and fieldwork at some of the sites visited by the great Victorian naturalist. His most recent books include All Things Darwin (2008) and Darwin’s Luck (2009).
Our second keynote speaker, Barbara York Main, author of Between Wodjil and Tor (1967), will present ‘Interactions of Water, Plants, and Ground-Dwelling Fauna’. Barbara grew up in the Western Australian wheatbelt. She graduated with a Ph.D. in Zoology from the University of Western Australia in 1957. She is Adjunct Professor with the School of Animal Biology at the University of Western Australia.
For a full schedule of speakers, please visit the ICLL website: http://www.landscapeandlanguagecentre.au.com/symposium_nov09.html
Students, staff, and the general public are welcome to join. The full-day symposium will be held in Building 10, Room 307 from 9.30am-5pm on Tuesday 17th November.
geometric form
I took this photo on Sunday at Lake Pollard and showed the photo as part of my presentation at the Hydrobotanics Symposium yesterday.
Talk on the palaeogeography of Cottesloe
This was a fantastic talk by Vic Semeniuk covering the old beach and dune surfaces visible at Cottesloe. I had not heard of the importance of freshwater seepage in the formation of what I have always assumed were purely wave cut platforms.
Pictured below is a trowel with bubbles formed at the upper end of the swash zone(?). In the pinkish cream areas below the same bubble structures can be seen preserved in limestone. I wish I had been to the talk the night before.
