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Show PAGE 20 THE ZEPHYRDECEMBER 1994 a seed fell from an old blackbrush shrub and bounced a few inches away into a crevice of the dark knobby soil crust Abundant moisture fell during the following months, and then 1478's spring sunshine wanned the dark oust The seed swelled and sprouted, sending up a little shoot A few leaves unfolded from this tiny stem and caught foe sun's rays. The leaves used the solar energy to make sugars out of carbon dioxide in the air and water in the soil Most of the sugary products manufactured by these leafy "food factories" flowed down into foe roots. So though the seedling didn't appear to grow much above ground during that first summer, its roots were flourishing in the sandy soil beneath. The little blackbrush seedling thrived. Though growing in a desert, its fragile roots and stems did not dry out because the scant rainfall was held by the surrounding soil crust, instead of all make running off. The crust and the soil also supplied the nutrients that the plant needed to many more leaves, stems and flowers. Season by season, year by year, the little plant grew into a vigorous young blackbrush shrub. The shrub took water and nutrients from the land, and in turn provided a bit of sustenance to foe area's animals. The teeth of rabbits or deer would occasionally nip a few leaves or tender d, shoots off the shrub, but there was always plenty to spare. The to never a in once wandered humans that while, however, sample the shrub's stopped by vegetative bounty. Below the hill where foe young shrub resided, foe gentle swale was covered with a lush thread grass grasses. The long, slender bristles of the needle-and- r growth of dump-forminheads of the ricegrass glistened disdosed even foe slightest breath of wind. The like gossamer when backlit by the rising sun. And at the feet of the grasses was the crust, the ubiquitous crust that stabilized and nourished the land. Toward the end of its first century of life, the blackbrush shrub endured a drought of eleven years. Winter snows were sparse and infrequent. Spring storms brought mostly strong winds, monsoon season was all show and no substance: but very little rain. The mid- - to Every morning puffy white douds blossomed to great heights over the mountains nearby to the northeast, but by late afternoon the douds had shrunk or dissipated altogether. Baked by the merciless sun, the parched land and all its inhabitants seemed to go dormant. The blackbrush shrub's extensive roots gleaned every available bit of water that fell, but eventually it reached foe verge of death. Then far to the south, a massive Pacific hurricane slammed into the western coast of Mexico. Riding on atmospheric winds, the remnant streams of douds carried their copious moisture northward. For four straight days and nights, wave after wave of torrential downpours drenched the blackbrush shrub on the low hill The storm was of a magnitude that the shrub had never known, and would pot know again. The crust certainly could not hold all the rain that fell, and . the region's canyons were carved a bit deeper by the event Needless to say, the blackbrush shrub and all of the area's life forms were revived. The storm ushered in a long period of more normal precipitation, and never again did the shrub face the prospect of succumbing to drought. After about another century and a half, one of the blackbrush shrub's neighbors died. Its leafless woody skeleton, bleached by the sun, took another full century to decay. By this point On the Down to Earth By Joel Tuhy side of this hill in the fall of the year 1477, dark-haire- g many-branch- ed December is a quiet time in Moab. The autumn recreation peak has dwindled, traffic is thinner, and life seems to slow down a bit At the end of the month we note the passage of time by reminiscing about an bid year and welcoming a new one. December is a time when we can consider some of the mysteries of our existence such as time itself. lime is a curious thing. I find it to be curious because I'm not even sure it is a "thing". It is a noun, but what is it really? When we talk about the passage of time, what exactly is passing? We cannot see, grasp or manipulate time. We cannot alter its speed or its direction. time at some points in our lives, Who among us has not wanted to stop, reverse, or as we do with a video in our VCR? Sadly, or perhaps fortunately, this staple of science fiction appears to be impossible for humans to do. - fast-forwa- rd vaguely remember reading somewhere that time may be our human way of perceiving or interpreting the increasing level of disorder (entropy) that is inherent in our universe. If this is so, then perhaps time is tangible to us only through its effects on the world and everything in it, especially us. In other words nothing and no one escapes the ravages of time. Some features of our world are more persistent than others. Feathery patterns of frost on a window pane do not survive more than the first few rays of winter morning sun. The rocks of the Colorado Plateau may last a billion times longer. The Colorado Plateau is an ancient land in ways other than its geologic character. Early explorers of the region took photographs a hundred or more years ago. Recently, scientists returned to the locations of some of those old photographs in Cataract Canyon. They took what are called "repeat photographs" of the old scenes, on the same date and time of day (judged by the shadows) as the originals. Individual plants of Results of comparing the bid and new photos are fascinating. blackbrush, mormon tea and Indian ricegrass appear virtually unchanged. Dead pinon pines are still standing, with even their numerous tiny brittle twigs intact. Pieces of driftwood along the Colorado River have not moved in a hundred years. These scenes suggest a land of remarkable stability from a human time perspective at least in areas that have not been affected by human influences during the past century. Other scientific evidence appears to bolster the idea that most of the landscape of the Colorado Plateau was very stable, slow to change, and therefore "ancient". The black lichen that grows in mature soil crust, and produces much of the natural nitrogen fertilizer for the plants, takes much longer than a human lifetime to grow back where it has been destroyed it knobby physical appearance far more quickly). Other (even though the crust can recent studies indicate that some of the common shrubs of our region, like the blackbrush and mormon tea, may live to ages of 400 years or more. What must it be like to have a life span of this scale? Consider the following story, which might actually be true. At least, there is no easy way to disprove it: Between Moab and Monticello, not far off Highway 191, there is a low rounded hill. Dotting the top and sides of this hill are dark green blackbrush shrubs rooted in the shallow laye of soil n that caps the underlying sandstone. Just below the hill is a gentle swale where sagebrush shrubs and a low layer of cheatgrass prosper in the deep sandy soil. I - - nt re-crea- te gray-gree- BrownTrout Publishers, Inc. POST OFFICE BOX 280070 SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA 94128-007- 0 SWESTERNEDVENIUR n a&ci a sr-- . late-summ- dPl UftsP dark-skinn- ed |