Scotty Strachan at The Interval: Long Now's Nevada, the Great Basin in the Anthropocene

The Long Now Foundation welcomes
Scotty Strachan
Environmental Researcher (University of Nevada, Reno)

with an introduction by Long Now's Alexander Rose
Executive Director of The Long Now Foundation

@ The Interval at Long Now: check-in begins at 6:30; talk will start at 7:30
Join us afterwards for drinks and conversation with our speaker

photo by Scotty Strachan

"There are trees on that mountain that are 5,000 years old and still living. The wood is so solid it's like stone, and it lasts for a long time. So when you do tree ring studies of trunks that are on the mountain, some of them go back 10,000 years."
—Stewart Brand, Long Now co-founder, about Bristlecone pines on Mount Washington

Our first Interval salon talk of 02015 will feature geographer Scotty Strachan (University of Nevada, Reno) discussing the Great Basin region of eastern Nevada which includes Great Basin National Park and Long Now's 180-acre property on Mount Washington.

Fifteen years ago Long Now bought land on Mount Washington which is home to the largest stand of bristlecone pines on private land. Bristlecones are amongst the oldest living things on the planet, as our founder Stewart Brand noted in his 02004 TED talk about the mountain.

Scotty will discuss his research work in eastern Nevada and put it in perspective with climate science efforts worldwide. He'll provide a long-term scientific perspective based on tree-ring analysis and other palaeo research work. And he'll look forward to what new insights could be unlocked by modern instrumentation.

Long Now's Alexander Rose will talk about Mount Washington and Long Now's broader interest in the Great Basin region. You will hear about Long Now's ongoing involvement including collaborating with University of Nevada to enable scientific research work on the geography, climate, and hydrology of the area.

photos courtesy of Scotty Strachan

Scotty has located, sampled, and analyzed old-growth conifers at over 50 sites in the Great Basin region as part of research for University of Nevada. Resulting tree-ring chronologies range from 300 to 2400 years. In 02004, Scotty found and dated a 900+ year old Pinus monophylla (Great Basin's classic single-needle pinyon pine) the oldest ever reported. His past dendrochronology projects have included multi-century streamflow reconstruction, historic archaeological dating, multi-century forest fire history, and drought reconstruction.

We hope you can join us for a night of deep history, important science, and natural beauty.

Scotty Strachan has been studying climate and dendrochronology in the Great Basin for over 12 years at the University of Nevada in Reno on track for his Geography Ph.D in 02016. He is a Nevada native raised in the rural Walker River Basin, where his first job involved getting into trouble and fence repair on a remote cattle ranch.

Scotty is now working on two NSF-funded projects at UNR: a watershed-scale palaeoclimate and hydrologically-oriented study in the Walker Basin, Nevada-California; and a Cyberinfrastructure initiative designed to improve data connectivity, collection, and maintenance for environmental science applications in the state of Nevada. From 02009-02013, he was centrally involved in siting, design, construction, and maintenance of a modern 12-station climate monitoring network spanning two Nevada mountain ranges.

He's also a photographer and we'll be showcasing his images of eastern Nevada along with the talk.