Laura Cunningham
@PaleoLaura
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Biologist trained in the Grinnell field method, UC Berkeley. California Director Western Watersheds Project, B&RW,
Death Valley, CA
Joined May 2018
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The updated Western Solar Plan will harm huge areas of habitat for these guys. They are hazed out of their burrows to make way for industrial utilityscale
#solar
projects. Just No! Rooftop and parking lot solar are the better alternatives to solar on wildlands
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It’s here east of Death Valley National Park Nevada near California boundary, north of Beatty NV. iPhone 12 exposure.
#aurora
! Mojave Desert!
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We had a beautiful
#wildflower
bloom last week in Sarcobatus Flat west-central Nevada in northernmost edge of Mojave Desert and into Transition zone with sagebrush. Huge rains here, I still need to tally my rain gauge totals. Dare I say superbloom? 🧵
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I’m getting sick of modelers saying it’s doomsday and we’re all going to die. I’ve lived in Death Valley region for 25 yrs and heatwaves like this are normal. When I lived at CowCreek in 2000 I took a walk when it was 126 F just to see what it was like. I lived. Salt Creek
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My oil painting of reconstructed fresh and saltwater marshes of south San Francisco Bay as might have appeared 500 years ago, based on historical ecological evidence and imagination. Tule elk, Gr white-fronted geese. Oil on paperboard, just sold it to a friend, will miss
#art
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My reconstruction of Tulare Lake hundreds of years ago before European contact, with Yokuts people hunting waterfowl in a tule balsa. Snow geese fly overhead and Sierran crest can be seen in the distance. It was an inland freshwater sea at times. Oil on cotton rag paper.
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We have
#aurora
! east of Death Valley National Park, Nevada/California border ~36.9 degrees Lat
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Had to go to Vegas today for errands. Crazy blizzard snow dump this morning just before we drove thru, thick snow at Cactus Springs. Snowplows working on 95, car slid off highway. On way home most snow melted, amazing sunset light on Sheep Range
#MojaveDesert
#weather
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Joshua trees and Providence Mtns in background, Mojave National Preserve, California
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Dusting off an old manuscript. Colored pencil and ink on paper. Sorry AI you cannot ‘think’ of this with any originality. It comes from fieldwork and imagination
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I am here to defend the desert. I am against bulldozers. It is this simple. To fight Climate Change impacts we must conserve these living biodiverse ecosystems: Panamint Valley
#California
#wildflower
bloom in December!
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I’ve been working on a special project about past landscapes and geology. I think it might finally get me spurred to write my booklet on how to draw block diagrams.
#illustration
#geology
#topomaps
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White-lined sphinx moth in Mojave cleomella this morning, east side of Death Valley in Nevada
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Central Nevada middle of nowhere, the way I like it. Just sagebrush and juniper
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This Mojave Desert landscape in
#Nevada
is a proposed utility-scale
#solar
project site, east of Spring Mountains. Why on earth should this by destroyed when vast parking lots in cities need shading with solar canopies. This is not how to fight
#climatechange
#publiclands
#DG
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My map of Pleistocene western North America ca 20,000 yrs ago showing Wisconsin full glacial conditions and also pluvial lakes. This is idealized, as glaciers flowed and ebbed, and pluvial lake development was on a different cycle and not necessarily contemporaneous.
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“Wasteland.” Desert gold (Geraea canescens) blooms are suddenly huge and widespread all over Amargosa Valley in southern Nevada from all the rains.
#wildflowers
#publiclands
#rooftopsolar
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This is a lake today at Badwater in Death Valley National Park, from all the runoff during huge rains from
#HurricaneHillary
remnants in August. The salty lake is slowly evaporating.
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Rain/snow showers over N Death Valley and Ubehebe Crater today
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🌼🌸🧵
#Wildflower
report from today, down in Death Valley at around 1500 ft elevation. This section of the
#desert
is greening up remarkably and just beginning to bloom. Cold temps have suppressed wildflowers, but longer days are allowing flowers to start.
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The recent rains dumped large amounts of water into the regional catchment of Death Valley basin, from the stalled Atmospheric River in early February. The shallow lake that was created from runoff gives me good research hinting at how Ice Age Lake Manly might have appeared
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Lake Manly thread! 🧵Death Valley National Park. I’ve been wanting to undertake a
#paleoart
painting of Pleistocene Lake Manly, it’s Ice Age vegetation, and megafauna for a long time. This quick small illustration is of Pleistocene Owens Lake w/ Columbian mammoth, bison, camel
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East of Death Valley, in Nevada along upper Amargosa River: steady rain all last night, increasing this morning. 0.7 inches so far.
#Hilary
Took a walk around ranch and meadows 🧵
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Explored Gold Butte National Monument in southern Nevada this weekend. Whitney Pocket Joshua trees and early Jurassic Aztec Sandstone
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A stunning Freckled milkvetch (Astragalus lentiginosus), also called Paper loco. 9,000 ft in WhiteMtns CA/NV. These colorful inflated seed pods dry and drop off, blowing in wind across ground to spread seeds
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Night 2: we have
#aurora
. Started later, very red on northern horizon. East side Death Valley National Park, in Nevada.
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A thousand years ago imagine grizzlies roaming freely through the South Coast Range with waving culms of needle grasses (Stipa cernua) and hills cloaked in blue oaks savannas. Painting from my book on historical ecology, oil on cottonrag paper.
#CaliforniaGrizzly
#LandOfNoFences
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Certain localized areas of Death Valley National Park are greening up remarkably with leafy wildflower diversity, and even some goldenbush shrubs are popping now. We have had good rains but below-average cold which has held back blooms. This may start to change. Stay tuned 🌼
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Desert gold (Geraea canescens) bloom in Panamint Valley CA is the best I’ve seen living here for 20 years. Yellow flowers ringing the playa which is still holding recent storm rainwater. Don’t believe claims that the desert is dying! It is thriving and we need to conserve it❤️🌼
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The Amargosa River swelling into flood stage today. We received almost 2 inches of rain in 24 hours, east of Death Valley National Park CA/NV. Mud everywhere, sheetflow. One of the largest storms I have recorded in 20 years here. Our annual rainfall average is 3 inches.
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The upper Amargosa River in Nevada is alive with blooms, here woolly baileya (Baileya pleniradiata)
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Hotspots of wildflower blooms around southern Death Valley: sand verbena and desert gold
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Narrow gorge in the Funeral Range with fresh flood washed gravel deposits, Death Valley National Park.
#desert
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Hiking up through forests of the Spring Range above Cold Creek Nevada you can look out thru the ponderosa pines across the vast Mojave Desert. Looking to N that appears to be Frenchman Flat and white alkali playa. Yes the Frenchman Flat. Short 🧵
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Complex clouds at sunset looking E, in Oasis Valley, Nevada, 10 miles from eastern boundary of Death Valley National Park. Today I bought supplies and tomorrow will be spent majorly battening down the hatches on this little desert ranch along the upper Amargosa River.
#Hilary
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Got out yesterday to a local Amargosa Desert secret: the Lava Dunes. Extraordinary wildflowers blooming from late rains. This is a new species for me: Ground nama (Nama aretioides)
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Chuckwalla and rock-loving Death Valley monkeyflower (Diplacus rupicola) on limestone cliff. Oil on primed cotton rag paper. I painted this in 2002.
#herps
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Fieldwork in the Hoover Wilderness, eastern Sierra Nevada of California. Herds of domestic sheep once grazed here in parts of this amazing glacially-carved high valley. No more but the rancher wanted to graze cattle! We fought them off 👍👌💚
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Aftermath of
#Hilary
east of Death Valley National Park, which remains closed due to flood and rockslide damage to roads. We are fine, the winds were not as bad as I thought last night as storm core passed to W of us. Rain was epic 🧵
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Help protect desert tortoises by building solar on rooftops and over parking lots, not by destroying their habitat for utilityscale profit projects
🌵🥾Help protect the
#deserttortoise
by only using designated open routes (marked by brown paddle signs) during your desert adventures. The critters will thank you!
#DesertTortoiseWeek
🐢
📸 Dana Wilson, BLM
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The sediment-laden Amargosa River flowing through mesquite in Shoshone California. It’s interesting to follow the flood pulse from the tropical storm remnants flow down thru watershed. Dry upstream, flowing midstream. Many roads in/around Death Valley closed from flood damage
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Wow this is the 1st time I’ve been called a NIMBY to my face with laughter by local reporter at meeting when I voiced opposition to 26,000-acre
#solar
project proposed here, 10 miles from where I live. Sarcobatus Flat.
#Nevada
#publiclands
#GreedLink
Does
#nature
matter anymore?
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Magic of the Mojave Desert: remote wild Western Joshua tree alluvial fan habitat at sunset east of Death Valley; tiny Beck’s desert scorpion revealed at night fluorescing with ultraviolet flashlight. I will fight against utilityscale energy development here with all my might⚡️🐢
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Well ya don’t see that everyday in Amargosa Valley Nevada
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OK I’m doing this, taking the plunge. I’m uploading my MS. and book A State of Change: Forgotten Landscapes of California (Heyday:2010) now no longer published, onto my own new website. As a distance learning curriculum for free. FU Amazon. Thank you Malcolm!
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Wonderful rain in northern Death Valley this afternoon. So nice 💦🌧
#weather
#CaliforniaDesert
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Sulphur buckwheat abounds in sagebrush at 10,000 ft below Boundary Peak in northern White Mtns, Nevada-California border
#Wilderness
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I’m always amazed at how Desert horned lizards match the color of their background home, here basalt and rhyolite. A plus camo.
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I support better climate change mitigation policies. But Climate advocates telling me I have to sacrifice my desert home and Joshua trees and tortoises and burrowing owls…. No, you have to sacrifice more too
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With all the rains in the
#MojaveDesert
of southern Nevada the greenery is expanding in many places. Yesterday I found a few wildflowers blooming: Fremont phacelia and poppy. Many
#Joshuatrees
blooming. South Pahrump Valley, NV. More rain due 💦
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Funeral Mtns in Death Valley National Park, California: the level of heat and pressure needed to melt rock like this when it is deep underground is difficult to conceive: metamorphic deposits in desert canyon look like jello.
#geology
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Northern Amargosa Valley
#Nevada
today with snow on Grapevine Mtns within Death Valley National Park. Cold day, snow not melting off. Old
#DesertRats
know it’s cold when snow lingers on the Black Mtns too.
#weather
#DeathValley
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Deep blue skies above Chicago Valley, Inyo County California
#Desert
, and banded Paleozoic dolomite/limestone
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I am a biologist living in the Mojave Desert, trying to conserve amazing biodiversity here. I took a certain LA Times reporter out to see these Joshua trees a year ago next to Death Valley National Park. I am standing just outside of this photo. No I am not a Big Oil shill
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The
#Mojave
desert tortoise are out! This beautiful adult female was seen dining on wildflowers in Nevada. But unfortunately she lives on a proposed utilityscale
#solar
energy project application site—Bonanza Solar Project proposed on
#publiclands
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Walking distance from my yard: Amargosa River in moderate flood stage from rainy March. NV/CA border region, northern Mojave Desert
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Greasewood (Sarcobatus vermiculatus) shrubs on undisturbed sand dunes, Big Smoky Valley west of Tonopah, Nevada. The landscape in the distance is proposed for utility-scale solar development for the Esmeralda 7 Solar project. Why not on urban parking lot shade canopies first???
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Huge cirrus blobs with ice virga tails floating by yesterday. I think this might have been Sierra Nevada snowmelt evaporation in part-warm lower temps and cold air aloft.
#clouds
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Badger this morning hanging around our old ranch buildings exploring. In the Mojave Desert they dine on pocket gophers, rattlesnakes, and are particularly fond of cicada nymphs feeding on underground saltbush roots. Badgers dig them out. This one checked out the garage
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Death Valley jointfir (Ephedra funerea) in upper Amargosa Valley, Nevada. This is an endemic shrub from an ancient group that goes back to the Mesozoic, the Gnetophytes, that are more closely related to conifers than to flowering plants. This is a survivor in arid Mojave Desert
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Never gets old looking at the giant crystal-clear flowing springs in Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, Nevada.
#desert
#waterislife
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Penstemon showing off in sagebrush at 9,000 ft in White Mtns CA/NV
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Mimi 🧵This is an amazing year for botanizing. There are plants blooming that no one has seen in years, if ever. The epic winter rains brought out diversity. A local took me to see this buckwheat which was on top of a rhyolitic peak, and was quite the 4x4 adventure to get to.
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Nice
#wildflower
bloom at 3600 ft east of Death Valley in
#Nevada
. This has been a cold moist spring, so the flower mix is different than in warmer years. Gilias are common in patches. A 🧵
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Polished marble canyon in the Funeral Range, Death Valley National Park. You don’t want to be in here during a flash flood.
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Alkali Lake is a Nevada basin playa that I have never seen full of water in the 20 years I have lived here. That is how much rain we have had. Should get interesting in the Great Basin with big snow forecast. Toquima Range snow in distance. 💙 the Great Basin!
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Snow bank calving ‘icebergs’ into a meltwater lake at 11,000 ft elevation, Hoover Wilderness, Sierra Nevada, California. The colors were amazing. I’m going to make this my computer desktop image during this July heat down here in the desert ❄️🌞
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Desert mountain lion! Fresh tracks this morning on dirt road near springbrook. Yes mountain lions live in Mojave
#Desert
and travel between mountain ranges in creosote scrub. Upper
#AmargosaRiver
#Nevada
#mammals
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Just a Mojave desert tortoise dining on beavertail cactus. Spines don’t matter to this tough reptile. Memory from couple springs ago in Ivanpah Valley California
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Continuing fieldwork during this amazing spring in the Great Basin, we stopped by to see the Tiehm’s buckwheat-my 1st time seeing the flowers! I sent in comments to feds to not allow destructive open pit Lithium mine to harm this rare narrow endemic
#TeamBuckwheat
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Sound on: springwater bubbling out of ground and trickling down travertine terraces in Death Valley. Precious
#water
in the desert
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White Mtns sunset, Inyo County California
#EasternSierra
. This lighting and colors of this region have always been the most spectacular I have seen
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I have had to block 2 trolls attacking me on my desert weather posts. Apparently natural history observations of weather trigger some people. People should get outside more. Cloud bands dumping snow across Desert National Wildlife Refuge in southern Nevada.
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Out in the hyperarid
#Mojave
Desert east of Death Valley, and where water bursts out of the ground in springs, biodiversity sings: this Cardinal flower (Lobelia cardinalis) was showing off today in the headwaters of the
#AmargosaRiver
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Wow I just saw a meteor/fireball lasting a full 5 seconds as it “slowly” burned across the dusk sky heading to the south. Death Valley region. Longest view of a meteor I have ever seen. Wish I could have filmed it ☄️
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Rare plant I was lucky enough to observe blooming this weekend (and a new species for me!!): Johnson’s devil claw cactus (Sclerocactus johnsonii). Eastern Inyo County California. The
#desert
is rich in life
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If you look closely parts of Death Valley have a flush of green. Thread on life in inhospitable places
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Badgers: amazing mammals. This one snuffling around my garage. I have followed individual badgers across 10 years based on characters. This guy is regular visitor. They dig up cicada grubs at base of saltbushes and seem highly intelligent. They are friendly and underrated
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Above-average rains have brought out the wildflowers: Desert star (Monoptilon bellioides), a flower you have to get down on your belly to enjoy. The Mojave Desert and Great Basin are alive with flowers moving in a wave northward as temps ameliorate ♥️🌸🌺🐢
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