| Forest history: |
The first known cutting in the Hubbard Brook valley was for red spruce which took place in the 1870's. This event can be seen in the "release" shown in the tree rings of older spruce which are still alive on or near the watershed and which were too small to be cut at that time. One such spruce is just a few meters NE of the weir and its life history can be seen in the figure based on a tree core from this spruce. There was probably an abundance of spruce mixed with northern hardwoods.
The next event
was the more general cutting of the hardwoods which took place between
1907 and 1915 over the area in and near W6. We think this was a fairly
intensive cut and a lot, if not most, of the trees presently in the forest
started at that time. By "started" we mean they were present as saplings
and were released by the cutting or started from seed in the open forest
floor. Certainly at least 90% of the current biomass has accumulated following
this clearing in the early 1900's.
The next forest disturbance event was the 1938 hurricane and probably a salvage logging afterwards. The life history of the spruce at the weir as shown in the figure illustrates the effect of the 1938 hurricane on the release of this tree. Interestingly, this tree does not show any response to the 1907-1915 hardwood cutting. Most probably the area around the weir was heavily populated with spruce in 1870. After these spruce were cut over, perhaps no hardwoods had grown large enough in the immediate surroundings of this particular tree to warrant any cutting near it in the early 1900's.
The research activities on W6 started in 1963 when the weir was installed, and the long term water record was started by the USFS in the same year. The water chemistry work was also started in 1963 and continues to the present.
The next major disturbance was the ice storm in January 1998. The effect of this storm in the breakage of tree crowns is not evident at the elevation of the weir, but has drastically affected the forest on the upper 2/3 of the watershed. We will be seeing some of this damage as we walk up the trail.
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