Earth Science Class Field Trip

Photos submitted by Dr. Doug Jeffries on 1/5/2009.

During the fall semester, Dr. Jeffries took Kim Van Scoy's Earth Science Class to a "relict" site about twenty miles north of Clarksville up in the mountains in the Ozark National Forest.

A relict site is one that has been undisturbed with a microhabitat unlike the surrounding area, and one closer to that of a larger habitat that existed in a previous climatic period. This one is in a ravine that is too steep to log, with a cooler and moister microclimate than the surrounding mountains, and with extremely large gum, beech, and maple trees. There is also in the ravine a small cave (sometimes containing bats), and perennial seep coming out of the hillside providing a home to endemic salamanders and crayfish.