Don, Thanks for the e-mail and the fascinating info. I'm doing a small research paper on old-growth and particularly Big Basin in Allegany. I already dug up a "Botanical Survey of Allegany State Park" written in 1937 that includes a map of all "mature timber" stands in the park. Sadly, it appears that the mature timber stands were far more abundant back then - the survey states 1300 acres of mature growth near the current location of Big Basin, yet I believe the current figure for Big Basin is 400 acres. However, there's a photo in there of a three-trunked Black Cherry with a combined diameter of 55 inches six feet above the ground. It'll be interesting to see if it's still there.
As for LiDAR, I'm just a neophyte at remote sensing, and I've learned more from your chats than you will learn from me! Unfortunately there doesn't appear to be any LiDAR data publicly available for NY. It would be fun to try out some projects around here, perhaps even studying Allegany to see just how much old-growth is left. "Sierra Club Guide to the Ancient Forests of the Northeast" states that there were 12 or so stands in ASP but that there could be more. Would be pretty rewarding to develop a project that could map potential sites using LiDAR, DEMs, etc. Steve --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Eastern Native Tree Society http://www.nativetreesociety.org Send email to [email protected] Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/entstrees?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
