Susquehanna shale hills critical zone observatory: Shale hills in the context of shaver’s creek watershed

Susan L. Brantley, Tim White, Nicole West, Jennifer Z. Williams, Brandon Forsythe, Dan Shapich, Jason Kaye, Henry Lin, Yuning Shi, Margot Kaye, Elizabeth Herndon, Kenneth J. Davis, Yuting He, David Eissenstat, Julie Weitzman, Roman Dibiase, Li Li, Warren Reed, Kristen Brubaker, Xin Gu

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

40 Scopus citations

Abstract

The Susquehanna Shale Hills Critical Zone Observatory (SSHCZO) was established to investigate the form, function, and dynamics of the critical zone developed on sedimentary rocks in the Appalachian Mountains in central Pennsylvania. When first established, the SSHCZO encompassed only the Shale Hills catchment, a 0.08-km2 subcatchment within Shaver’s Creek watershed. The SSHCZO has now grown to include 120 km2 of the Shaver’s Creek watershed. With that growth, the science team designed a strategy to measure a parsimonious set of data to characterize the critical zone in such a large watershed. This parsimonious design includes three targeted subcatchments (including the original Shale Hills), observations along the main stem of Shaver’s Creek, and broad topographic and geophysical observations. Here we describe the goals, the implementation of measurements, and the major findings of the SSHCZO by emphasizing measurements of the main stem of Shaver’s Creek as well as the original Shale Hills subcatchment.

Original languageEnglish
Article number180092
JournalVadose Zone Journal
Volume17
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - 2018
Externally publishedYes

Funding

This research was conducted in Penn State’s Stone Valley Forest, which is funded by the Penn State College of Agriculture Sciences, Department of Ecosystem Science and Management, and managed by the staff of the Forestlands Management Office. Financial Support was provided by National Science Foundation Grant EAR–0725019 (C. Duffy), EAR–1239285 (S. Brantley), and EAR–1331726 (S. Brantley) for the Susquehanna Shale Hills Critical Zone Observatory. Logistical support and/or data were provided by the NSF-supported Susquehanna Shale Hills Critical Zone Observatory.

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