For the cache location, consider the length of the Warnervale Walking Track as a line through the Wetlands. The smaller track heading West is also to be considered. Think of a wetland, and one pictures a watery area with cattails, rushes, and waterfowl. Now think of the scientists who study wetlands, and botanists or biologists probably come to mind. Geology is seldom mentioned in the context of wetland studies, yet geology plays a critical role in understanding wetland dynamics. Three characteristics make wetlands unique -- vegetation, soils, and hydrology. The vegetation is dominated by plants adapted to wet conditions; the soils are developed in water-saturated materials; and sites are either saturated, periodically flooded, or contain permanently standing water.
Hydrology may be the single most important factor in the establishment and maintenance of specific wetland types. For example, wetlands receive water from various sources: precipitation, surface water runoff, and groundwater. Each source is characterized by a certain water chemistry, which in turn affects the type of vegetation and diversity of species. The permanence of a water source determines the type of soil that develops, which also influences the type of vegetation present. Understanding the hydrology of a wetland is important to decisions involving its future and to evaluating trade-offs involved in protection, development, and mitigation. Wetlands are often valued in functional terms; for instance, does the wetland reduce flooding, does it recharge groundwater, or does it improve water quality? To address these questions and provide adequate wetland evaluations requires an understanding of why wetlands occur in a particular place and where the water comes from. These are fundamentally geologic questions.
TYPES OF WETLAND:
*A BOG or MUSKEG is acidic peat land (peat bog).
*A MOOR was originally the same as a bog but has come to be associated with this soil type on hilltops.
*A MOSSis a raised bog in Scotland.
*A FEN is a freshwater peat land with chemically basic (which roughly means alkaline) ground water.
*A CARR is a fen which has developed to the point where it supports trees. It is a European term, mainly applied in the north of the UK.
*A MARSH can be fresh water, salt water, or brackish.
*A FRESH-WATER MARSH'S main feature is its openness, with only low-growing or "emergent" plants. It may feature grasses, rushes, reeds, typhas, sedges, and other herbaceous plants (possibly with low-growing woody plants) in a context of shallow water. It is an open form of fen.
*A COASTAL SALT MARSH may be associated with estuaries and along waterways between coastal barrier islands and the inner coast. It may be converted to human use as pasture or for salt production.
*A BRACKISH MARSH has water which is only slightly salty. The most frequent place to find brackish water is where freshwater and salt water meet, such as the mouth of a river where it flows into an ocean.
*A SWAMP is wetland with more open water surface and deeper water than a marsh. In North America, it is used for wetlands dominated by trees and woody bushes rather than grasses and low herbs, but this distinction does not necessarily apply in other areas, for instance in Africa where swamps may be dominated by papyrus.
*A MIRE (or QUAGMIRE) is a low-lying wetland of deep, soft soil or mud that sinks underfoot.
*A DAMBO is a shallow, grass-covered depression of the central and southern African plateau which is waterlogged in the rainy season, and usually forms the headwaters of a stream or river. It is marshy at the edges and at the headwater, but may be swampy in the centre and downstream.
*A BAYOU or SLOUGH are southern United States terms for a creek amongst swamp. In an Indian mangrove swamp, it would be called a creek.
*A CONSTRUCTED WETLAND is artificially contrived wetland, intended to absorb flash floods, clean sewage, enhance wildlife or for some other human reason.
*A POCOSIN is a bog-like wetland dominated by fire-adapted shrubs and trees, found mainly in the southeastern United States on the Atlantic Coastal Plain.
QUESTIONS:
1. When this Wetland area floods where does the water drain to and how ?
Name the Creek and the River it flows into..
2. Name 5 x Types of Wildlife Observed on the Wetlands, and Include a Photo of one of
the solitary Trees surviving within the wetlands.
3. What Type of Wetland actually is Warnervale Wetlands ?
4. Examine the Soil in the wetlands and Define Why and How it allows such Wetlands to
Form.