Natural Resources
Conservation Service
Ecological site F144AY041MA
Very Wet Till Depressions
Accessed: 09/27/2024
General information
Provisional. A provisional ecological site description has undergone quality control and quality assurance review. It contains a working state and transition model and enough information to identify the ecological site.
MLRA notes
Major Land Resource Area (MLRA): 144A–New England and Eastern New York Upland, Southern Part
MLRA 144A: New England and Eastern New York Upland, Southern Part
The eastern half of the eastern part of this MLRA is in the Seaboard Lowland Section of the New England Province of the Appalachian Highlands. The western half of the eastern part and the southeastern half of the western part are in the New England Upland Section of the same province and division. The northwestern half of the western part is in the Hudson Valley Section of the Valley and Ridge Province of the Appalachian Highlands. This MLRA is a very scenic area of rolling to hilly uplands that are broken by many gently sloping to level valleys that terminate in coastal lowlands. Elevation ranges from sea level to 1,000 feet in much of the area, but it is 2,000 feet on some hills. Relief is mostly about 6 to 65 feet in the valleys and about 80 to 330 feet in the uplands.
This area has been glaciated and consists almost entirely of till plains and drumlins dissected by narrow valleys with a thin mantle of till. The southernmost boundary of the area marks the farthest southward extent of glaciation on the eastern seaboard. The river valleys and coastal plains are filled with glacial lake sediments, marine sediments, and glacial outwash. The bedrock in the eastern half of the area consists primarily of igneous and metamorphic rocks of early Paleozoic age. Granite is the most common igneous rock, and gneiss, schist, and slate are the most common metamorphic rocks. In the parts of the MLRA in northeastern Pennsylvania and in eastern and southeastern New York, Devonian- to Pennsylvanian-age sandstone, shale, and limestone bedrock is dominant. Carbonate rocks, primarily dolomite and limestone, are the dominant kinds of bedrock in the part of this MLRA in northwestern Connecticut.
Ecological site concept
The site consists of very poorly drained loamy soils formed in subglacial till derived mainly from granite, gneiss and/or schist. Slopes range from 0 to 3 percent. Representative soils are Menlo, Whitman, and Mansfield.
The reference plant community is a red maple swamp (Swain and Kearsley 2011, Metzler and Barrett 2006). The tree layer is dominated by red maple with scattered pin oak and blackgum. Other trees that can occur include eastern hemlock, shagbark hickory, white pine, white ash, and white oak. Common shrubs include highbush blueberry, common winterberry, sweet pepperpush, spicebush, and swamp azalea. Herbaceous species include skunk cabbage, cinnamon fern, royal fern, mannagrass, and tussock sedge. Blowdowns are common resulting in a generally open tree cover, less than 75% (Metzler and Barrett 2006). The site is threatened by invasive exotic plants such as Japanese barberry and glossy alder-buckthorn.
Within red maple swamps, hydro-geologic setting is a primary determinant of water regimes, water chemistry, plant community structure and floristics, and groundwater recharge and discharge relationships (Golet et al 1992).
Table 1. Dominant plant species
Tree |
(1) Acer rubrum |
---|---|
Shrub |
Not specified |
Herbaceous |
(1) Lycopus americanus |
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