What is an ‘Ecosystem View’ part 2

Situating the LAND part of North Coast – mountains cut by ‘gaps’

According to one system of classification this is the northern part of the ”coastal gap”. The Douglas Channel and Central coast are more typical. Left we see the Nass and Skeena rivers (fjords? see below) cut thru the Costal mountains (referred to KIR) and along the coast is a shallow flat area: the Hecate lowlands (HEL

And it is steep – even the low lands are mostly <= 30%

The wet mild climate and steep topography makes for monotonous soils

Closer look at soils

Note how unique the bogs on coast are The Fibrisol and Mesisols are just different types of organic soils (like ‘bogs’ to us lay people ) The Ferro-Humic is formed from colluvium as parent material; another fancy word for landslides etc Note the brown areas on Nass and Skeena; that is alluvium; which one would expect to find being deposited at the mouth of the river; thus can see the lower Nass and Skeena as a Fjord Around the Terrace area we see the dominance of glacial material. It is usually called “till”. It reacts differently and thus has a layer where chemicals leached down from surface make a hard crust. Of course there are areas around Rupert where that is true too (Digby Island) but on the scale of maps is insignificant (and few studies have been done in detail for this area0

Ultimately all that colluvium comes form the rocks

The Coastal mountains are made of low nutrient rocks mainly like granites (reds and purples) Note how Rupert area fairly unique as is Hartley Bay area – Perhaps there will be unique ecosystems in those areas too