Winter 2023 Lectures

RESCHEDULED: TUESDAY, February 28th, 2023, ONLINE– “Rock Art East of the Range of Light: One Piece of a Global Puzzle.” David Lee, Western Rock Art Research & former WMRC Staff. The Owens Valley is home to the Paiute people and their ancestors, who arrived here many thousands of years ago. This landscape is rich with traces of their lives. Most visible are the amazing and intriguing petroglyphs and pictographs, a literal history book for these peoples, and much more. Documentation is the first step in developing management strategies to protect these inspiring and unique sites. This lecture will present information gathered from over twenty years of documentation in the Eastern Sierra region and throughout the American west. This will be compared to information gathered during ten field-seasons of documentation and research in the Northern Territory of Australia. 6:00 p.m.-7:30 p.m. PT. A recording of this talk can be viewed HERE.

Correction: David Lee would like to retract statements made at 42:35 to 43.00, and would like to apologize to Dr. Whitley, whose quote appears to be correct; the large numbers of vulvi-form images found in the Owens Valley region does not reflect their occurrence throughout the Great Basin and Mojave Desert.  

RESCHEDULED THURSDAY, April 6th, 2023, ONLINE-“Guess who is coming to stay? Impacts from an extended visit by a family of atmospheric rivers, December 27 2022 to January 16 2023.” Sue Burak has been fascinated by snow, weather and avalanches in the eastern Sierra for many winters. Past project include study of snow properties in the Sierra Nevada during NASA’s recent SnoEx field campaign, collecting snow properties in the boreal forests of Saskatchewan and Manitoba, to on-going research into the mysteries of glide avalanche formation and release on Olmsted Point in Yosemite National Park. This talk presents on-going efforts to unravel the relationship between specific weather, climate and snowpack factors that contributed to numerous large magnitude avalanches during December 2022 and January 2023. 6:00 p.m.-7:30 p.m. PT. Registration required via Zoom HERE. This talk will be recorded. FREE & OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.

THURSDAY, March 23rd, 2023, ONLINE- “Black Holes, White Gold: A Floristic Inventory of the Silver Peak Range, Esmeralda County, NV.” Peri Lee Pipkin, Claremont University, 2022 WMRC Mini Grant recipient. Peri Lee is conducting a floristic inventory of the Silver Peak mountains in Esmeralda County, Nevada. These desert mountains are arid yet full of incredible biodiversity, and range from valleys of alkali wetlands, cactus flats to red rock canyons, and peaks bearing lupines and bristlecone pines. There are also several springs, alkali wetlands, streams, and ponds that support riparian areas, and the range is also one of the northwestern most extents of the Western Joshua Trees. There are several species of interest in the area, including the endemic and endangered Tiehm’s buckwheat, and the rare plant Tecopa Bird’s Beak. In addition to this floristic inventory, Peri Lee is also writing a conservation plan in order to preserve the threatened population of Tecopa’s Bird’s Beak that occurs in the alkali wetlands. This work is especially urgent as this landscape that supports so many unique species also faces pressures from climate change. 6:00 p.m.-7:30 p.m. PT. Registration required via Zoom HERE. This talk will be recorded. FREE & OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.

All 2021 and 2022 lectures are recorded and can be watched on YouTube: