Olympic National Park’s 2022 ‘Perspectives’ series held virtually

Published 1:30 am Wednesday, February 2, 2022

Olympic National Park’s Perspectives Winter Speaker Series is hosted by the North Olympic Library System via Zoom for the 2022 season. The free talks will be offered at 7 p.m. on the second Tuesday of each month, January through April.

Registration, available at nols.org, is required to attend the Zoom meeting.

Participation at each program is limited to the first 100 registered attendees. Programs will be simultaneously streamed at facebook.com/NorthOlympicLibrarySystem for additional attendees.

This series is sponsored by Olympic National Park, the Friends of Olympic National Park, and the North Olympic Library System.

This season’s schedule includes:

• Feb. 8 — “Revisiting Stratigraphy of the Eocene to Miocene Sedimentary Rocks on the Olympic Peninsula” with Erin Donaghy, PhD student at Purdue University

This research aims to better understand sedimentary basin formation following accretion of a large oceanic plateau (Siletzia) to the Pacific Northwest about 50 million years ago. We document the sedimentary basin response to this collision by characterizing changing depositional environments and sediment routing pathways in basin deposits to understand how tectonic plate configurations changed during establishment of the modern Cascadia magmatic arc.

• March 8 — “Forest Restoration on Exposed Sediments Along the Elwha River” with James Kardouni and Jenise M. Bauman, Western Washington University

Riverbank lupine is a pioneering species that assimilates nitrogen through nitrogen-fixing bacteria in a form that is readily available to plants. The purpose of this study was to investigate lupine’s influence on conifer establishment in newly exposed soils that resulted from the removal of the dams on the Elwha River.

• April 12 — “Klamath River Restoration” with Josh Chenoweth, botanical restoration ecologist

Josh Chenoweth managed the revegetation effort after dam removal on the Elwha River. He’s since moved to take on a similar role during Klamath River Restoration in Southern Oregon/Northern California. Learn about how lessons learned from Elwha revegetation and restoration are informing Klamath restoration.

For more information about Olympic National Park, visit nps.gov/olym.