WMOD00290 ‎(2)‎

• Project Name: The Medicine Bow Ecology Project
• Title: The Potential Sensitivity of Various Ecosystem Components to Winter Precipitation Management in the Medicine Bow Mountains, Wyoming
• Prepared For: Bureau of Reclaimation
• Date: 2/28/1975
• State: WY
• Weather Modification - Doc Type: Report

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The pH at b6th sites ~as about 4.4 at 0-4 em depth,3.9 at 4-20 cm,
and 4.0 at 20-50 em.
Oostin~and Reed (1952) studied spruce-fir forests in the Medicine
BON Mountains and found without exception that there were boullders of
varying size~ exposed in every stand, some igneous and some mE!tamorphic
in nature. The litter layer was always thin, 3 to 13 mm, and the soil
profi les varied 1 i ttle from stand to stand. Somers (1951) observed
podzo1izati~n in all the spruce~fir stands he studied, especially on
the ridges where the most mature soils; were found. He found that most
of the roots were in the B horizon, and that the A horizon had a mean pH
of 4.7 and about 45% sand, 24% clay, c!ll'ld 31% silt. Somers (1~~5J) ob-
served that spruce seemed most convnon on the more silty and cJ:ayey
soi Is. By contrast Jacoby (1971) and Severson ('1963) found a!;pen most
frequently on sandy loam to loamy soils.
Moir (1969), working in Colorado, found that well-drained soi Is
derived from coarse-textured granites or granodiorites were frequently
covered with lodgepole pine forest, a common forest type in the Medicine
Bow Mountains. Surface mineral horizolns were g~nt!ral1y found to be
gravelly loamy sands or gravelly sandy loams and in some stands were
considered cobbly. Surface humus horizons were found to form a nearly
continuous mat about 2 to 3 em thick, somewhat'thicker than the spruce-
fir 1 itter. Reynolds & Knight (J973) found no significant difference
in the litter depth of lodgepole pine forest a~d spruce~fir forest in
the Nash Fork Watershed, Medicine Bow Mountains.

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