Estimating organic carbon on avalanche paths in Glacier National Park, Montana

has been approved by the Examining Committee for the thesis requirement for the Master of Arts degree in Geography at the May 2014 graduation. ii " Far away in Montana, hidden from view by clustering mountain-peaks, lies an unmapped northwestern corner-the Crown of the Continent. The water from the crusted snowdrift which caps the peak of a lofty mountain there trickles into tiny rills, which hurry along north, south, east and west, and growing to rivers, at last pour their currents into three seas. From this mountain-peak the Pacific and the Arctic oceans and the Gulf of Mexico receive each its tribute. Here is a land of striking scenery. " George Bird Grinnell 1901 iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Thanks to Greg Pederson and his crew for the initial data collection in 2003. Thanks to the Glacier National Park personnel for granting permission to conduct this research. Special thanks to Chris Douglass, who assisted with data collection in August of 2013 (sorry we didn't catch any fish). Most importantly, I would like to thank my family for their encouragement and support while pursuing my Master's degree. iv ABSTRACT Avalanche paths are unique ecosystems that represent a significant portion of the landscape in the northern Rocky Mountains. Frequent avalanche disturbance results in vegetative cover that is unlike the adjacent coniferous forest. These high relief environments have the potential to remove carbon from the atmosphere at rates differing from those of the surrounding forest, and to regulate matter and/or energy fluxes to downslope ecosystems. This thesis attempts to estimate organic carbon on south-facing avalanche paths in the southern portion of Glacier National Park, Montana. I am specifically interested in total organic carbon density, compartmental carbon density, and change in organic carbon over time as a function of shrub and tree diameter. Using an integrated sampling method, estimates of total organic carbon on avalanche paths appear to be different than those of the adjacent forest and similar to those of other shrub formation types in the area. However, the potentially moveable litter compartment is consistently larger. Organic carbon from shrub and trees growing on paths appears to be increasing at a continuous rate leading up to disturbance, while a typical individual's rate of increase appears to be slowing. The organic material temporarily stored on avalanche paths could serve as an important outside carbon source for near and distant aquatic ecosystems.