The last three weeks I have been working on a project surveying vegetation recovery at oil well sites across the Colorado Plateau. Our sites have taken us to Bluff, UT, the Moab area, and Virgin, UT, near Zion National Park. Many of these wells are very old (some as old as the 1920s). This makes finding them quite difficult, as GPS was not around in the 20s… It has been fascinating, though, to find each of the wells and to assess the vegetation effects of disturbance!

At each site, we establish 30m transects and measure both cover as well as density. For the purposes of recovery, we are only measuring perennial plants (with annuals included, the task would be much greater!!). We then find a suitable reference site (an adjacent area with similar soils, topography, and ideally free of disturbance).

Along the way, we have identified and learned to recognize countless new species, including Lygodesmia grandiflora, Oenothera pallida, Muhlenbergia pungens, Dalea candida var. oligophylla, Machaeranthera tanacetifolia, Townsendia incana, and Chaetopappa ericoides. And of course some interesting Utah lizards…

I’m looking forward to looking at the data more closely to tease out the differences in vegetation recovery between sites, especially the older ones from the 1920s!

Til next time,

Daniel