LAURA: Hey, good morning Eric Weaver.

How's  life in Western New Mexico this morning?

ERIC: Oh, it's good.

It's still  a little bit cold out this way.

LAURA: Awesome.

So, thanks everybody for joining  us.

I've got Eric Weaver and he is joining us from   el Malpais National Monument and I believe  you also work for el Morro… is that right?

ERIC: That's correct.

LAURA: Okay, so we're gonna start.

Last year there   were some news reports about alligator junipers  being cut from within the monument boundaries.

Can you talk a little bit about, you know, why  you think that was happening and kind of what's   happened since those news reports last year?

ERIC: So, news reports came out about a year ago,   however the cutting of the alligator junipers  actually started occurring about two years ago.

And we've actually seen a sizable number  of alligator juniper lost because of that.

What we expect that people are using that  for, is for lumber.

Alligator juniper can   get a pretty good price for different kind  of furniture and things of that sort.

So,   the way that the trees are getting cut are, kind  of, not very thoughtful in the process.

They,   and they pretty much, they leave the trees  as pretty well scarred, where they are not   going to actually be able to recover at all.

LAURA: So, aside from the fact that, you know,   it's a protected area that people aren't supposed  to be cutting in, why is it significant that   these trees are being cut, do you think?

ERIC: Oh, well we do not have very many   alligator juniper trees in our park.

It's not  very common.

The, so that's one of the concerns,   is that a lot of, a lot of the, a lot of our  park, everything is very connected with the   ecosystem.

So, when you, when you start  to have a depletion of one type of tree,   there's other consequences that may happen with  that, because the different vegetation, kind of,   will kind of rely upon that connectiveness.

And,  when you live, wipe out an entire area, then you   may also have further consequences with that.

LAURA: So, I'm a big fan of alligator junipers.

I   love, like, when hiking in different places, when  you spot one, it always feels, kind of, like a,   like treat, because they're kind of special.

A  little less common than the one seeded junipers,   but you have lots of other really cool  and interesting and important trees in   the national monuments.

Can you talk about  those and maybe we'll start with a particular   douglas fir that you told me about… ERIC: Yeah, the douglas fir that I   was talking to you about is that, it was  named yoda tree, because of its appearance.

And, it's about… it died in 2014, I believe was  about a 600 year old douglas fir and some of the   things that came out of that, though, is that  there is other trees that are in that vicinity   that, were cored for dendrochronological records.

And they were actually able to get a 2,000 year   denture, chronological record to,  kind of, better help us understand   our climatic conditions and, in particular, the  researchers were studying fire regimes, which is   fairly interesting for our park, because  our fire regimes, because of our geology,   our lava fields kind of inhibit large fires in  general.

So, we may not actually, it… a lot of the   trees in the park will not see fire for hundreds  of years.

And, normally, when we do see a fire   it's kind of, a lot of times  it's just one lightning strike…   caused by, like, one lightning strike.

LAURA: So, we've done a number of shows   that kind of tie into tree ring data.

When it  comes to things like fire regimes and drought   and I'm curious, there are there other trees in  the park that people are coring and studying.

ERIC: So, we've had a large number of studies that  there's ongoing studies of the trees in the park,   douglas firs tend to be the ones that people look  at the most.

But, we have a lot of trees that are   very old in the park.

Our rocky mountain juniper  are also, they're four to six hundred years old,   in a lot of cases, as well as our  ponderosa… it can get up to 600 years.

And, some of our, actually, some of our pinons  that can also get to four to six hundred years.

So, that is another concern that we have with  this cutting, is that we're going to have more   people start to cut down some of  these older trees, that there's,   it would be a very unfortunate.

And one  of the things that is surprising is, that,   some of the records that we're actually get are  from trees that are dead and down and so a lot of   people would not actually consider it that big  of a deal.

Just to pick it up and use it for a   fire a campfire or something like that, but it may  actually be a very critical record that they're   actually destroying in the process.

LAURA:   So, I think when we spoke last week you mentioned  some other things… like, I believe it was pygmy   ponderosas and then aspen.

So, there's some unique  little pockets of ecosystems there, is that right?

ERIC: Yeah, that's, el Malpais is very interesting  in that it's composed of eight different lava   flows that occurred from 3,000 years ago, all  the way up to 10,000 to 100,000.

And, it would,   if you actually include like the conservation  area next to el Malpais and each of those lava   flows kind of creates different characteristics  to the vegetation.

And so, the Mccarty's flow   and as well as the Bandera lava flow, both have  pygmy douglas firs and ponderosa.

And those   are just kind of, just able to grow, utilizing  the water sources that are between the cracks   of the lava flows, where it's kind of stored  there.

And so, it's kind of a, it's a very   fine balance for them, to actually be able to  survive and that's why they have the pygmy nature   with that.

But, we also have the aspen that grow  in the park and it's at a fairly low elevation.

We're looking at 7,000 foot elevation, and in  that case, it's where the aspen are kind of   utilizing the water flow off of the lava fields.

And yeah, but, they're very beautiful to see.

LAURA: They, because of the contrast between  the aspen trees and the lava, the blackness of   the lava, kind of, I've always found as a very  synthetic, very beautiful and looking at those.

So, I was out there a few weeks ago and, you  know, just kind of marvel over the fact that   these trees are growing on these lava fields.

And, you can see these big kind of tap roots   stretching across the rocks.

Obviously these, you  know, so many of them survived hundreds of years   and during a time, I would imagine,  when people needed that wood,   you know, for building, for burning, when that  was the only fuel source and a really important,   you know, a really important resource to people.

And yet, they were preserved for hundreds of   years.

And, you know, kind of, I'm curious what  you think about what it says about our society,   that we maybe don't think twice about cutting some  of these ancient trees, that are so important…  ERIC: Yeah, yeah… with the el Malpais, it  was heavily logged all the way up to about   World War II and I think that's  kind of what stopped the logging   from actually taking over, a lot more of  our trees… there's a lot of the trees that   we have out there.

We're kind of protected  because of difficulty of access to that,   now where, now since el Malpais is a park,  as well as a recommended wilderness area.

There's a lot of protection that's put into  place, to protect the trees from cutting and so   hopefully we'll start to see a lot of that start  to grow back over time.

The, obviously we still   have to the concern over the fact that we can   remain in a continuous drought and it's going  to be a very rough life for the trees.

And so,   and that just goes back to being concerned  about the illegal cutting, is that those trees,   getting those trees back may not be possible.

LAURA: Speaking of drought, one of the other   big resources that the monuments  have, are lava tubes and caves.

In our newsletter a few months ago, when it  came out, we wrote about this really neat study   from some cave ice that was harvested.

Can  you talk a little bit about that study?

And,   we'll put a link to it in the comments as well.

ERIC: Yes, we have several hundred lava tubes   in the park and there's about 100 of those lava  tubes, have some perennial ice.

We actually have   the most southerly perennial ice in North America.

So, and how that, how that occurs is that the   lava acts as, like, an insulation.

And so, it  kind of keeps, it keeps the cold air in the   cave.

We refer to this, like cold air trap,  and because it also is the morphology, the   shape of the cave kind of keeps it, kind of  helps that to recirculate in there.

And then,   we have the moisture that, that  kind of kind of seeps through the   lava.

And that's how the ice actually kind of  stays there and you'll have… so, most of our   caves are temperatures are kind of in the 30 to 40  degree temperature throughout the year.

And, and   so that would, a lot of people through history,  for millennia, have utilized the cave ice and that   would be so within pre-contact.

They would have  been using… people would have been using it for,   for collecting water, because of other droughts  in the past.

They would, would have needed to   utilize that as a resource as well as possibly  for refrigeration, for keeping holding food.

We also see that kind of historic times where  people continue to do those same type of   activities and one of the things that, with cave  ice, is that it's a way that we can actually,   just the way that we act, it's in the same  way that we can actually get information from   tree cores or speleothems… we can also get that  information from cave ice and that… and so,   so we recently did it, did some course in the cave  that resulted in a publication and some additional   ongoing research.

That, and some of the exciting  parts to it is that it reached back in time   almost… I'm sorry, I was trying to… I think it  reached back about 2,000 years ago as well.

And,   it gave us more information about our past climate  history so that we could, kind of, kind of match,   match different events that were occurring  when we had different droughts.

And so,   in conjunction with that, there was charcoal  that we also were able to utilize, to kind   of understand times when people were using  the cave ice.

And so, there is a substantial   connection between when people were using the  cave ice and when there was drought periods.

And so, that kind of gives us more information  about our history.

The one thing we are hoping   to get, that we have not been able to get, is kind  of more information about the great drought, that   happened in the southwest thousands of years ago.

LAURA: And, there's some other interesting   scientific studies that have gone on recently,  are ongoing.

Can you talk about a few of those?

ERIC: So there's, one of the things that we're  doing right now is, we've had issues regarding   pseudomyogenic destructants, which is the fungus  that causes white nose syndrome.

And so, we have   been doing studies to kind of monitor the bats as  well.

Ss one of the researchers that we're working   with, Dianna Northa from University of New Mexico,  she's a microbiologist and has been taking a look   at some of the microbes that are in the cave.

And sometimes, these microbes are also on the   bats themselves.

And trying to identify if there's  any type of natural defense that they can actually   develop… some find out, whether these microbes  may have, like, a natural defense against   the fungus and in addition to that, it is… she's  also doing studies with actinobacteria, to see   it kind of gives us a better understanding of what  life is like, what the potential for life on other   planets is… what that would actually look like.

LAURA:   Well, Eric Weaver, thanks so much for joining me  to talk about all the cool things happening at   the park, above ground and below ground.

It's such  a… both monuments are so cool and I love visiting   both of them.

They're beautiful.

ERIC: Okay,   yeah.

Stop by anytime.

LAURA: Thanks Eric.