Abstract
Approaching by air from the southwest of Utah, Edward Abbey wrote, “...we can plainly see the transition. Instead of canyons, mesas, plateaus and the sculptured forms of sandstone we see long, forested mountain ranges trending north and south, each range isolated from the next by an intervening broad valley or basin of dun colored desert true wastelands of sparse shrubby vegetation, wide beds of waterless drainages, huge alluvial fans spreading out from the base of each mountain into the valley below. The mountains stand half buried in their own debris, the valleys marked by the winding subsurface rivers seeking an outlet, which most will never reach, to the sea. The aspect below is one of unrelieved bleakness and barrenness — tawny sands, dull clays and gravels, gray rocky peaks and craggy breaks thinly covered with the olive drab of juniper and pinyon pine — but the scale of things is awesome...” (Muench and Abbey 1979).
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Irwin-Williams, C.C., Osmond, C.B., Dansie, A.J., Pitelka, L.F. (1990). Man and Plants in the Great Basin. In: Plant Biology of the Basin and Range. Ecological Studies, vol 80. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-74799-1_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-74799-1_1
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