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Alpine Vegetation Trends in Glacier National Park, Montana 2003-2018

Metadata Updated: November 12, 2025

The focus of this dataset is soil temperature collected on four mountain summits in Glacier National Park, Montana, USA from 2003 through 2018. Two summit sites were established in 2003 on Dancing Lady and Bison Mountain, east of the continental divide. Two additional summit sites were established in 2004 on Pitamakin and Mt. Seward, also east of the continental divide. These four summit sites comprise a target region set up in accordance with the Global Observation Research Initiative in Alpine Environments (GLORIA). GLORIA was initiated by the University of Vienna in 2000 and protocols for operating target regions have been refined and revised since then. Sixty-nine GLORIA target regions now exist throughout the world; 16 are in the U.S.A. Current protocols are available at: https://gloria.ac.at/downloads/manual. Along with the plant surveys which took place every five years, temperature loggers were buried 10cm into the substrate on each aspect and on the highest point of each summit and set to record at one hour intervals. Some loggers were lost or their batteries failed before being replaced by new loggers but other logger locations recorded near continuous soil temperature readings since 2003. This will enable on site climate data to be used in analyzing the alpine plant data by looking for snow cover patterns and timing and length of growing season. These loggers were downloaded and replaced every 3-5 years and are currently still on site. A plant survey and temperature data recovery are planned for summer 2019.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

Downloads & Resources

Dates

Metadata Created Date September 13, 2025
Metadata Updated Date November 12, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from DOI USGS DCAT-US

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date September 13, 2025
Metadata Updated Date November 12, 2025
Publisher U.S. Geological Survey
Maintainer
Identifier http://datainventory.doi.gov/id/dataset/usgs-5d013e7ce4b05cc71cad2649
Data Last Modified 2020-08-26T00:00:00Z
Category geospatial
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 010:12
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Metadata Catalog ID https://ddi.doi.gov/usgs-data.json
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id 81646c70-8957-4687-9780-4082cd6cdb3b
Harvest Source Id 2b80d118-ab3a-48ba-bd93-996bbacefac2
Harvest Source Title DOI USGS DCAT-US
Metadata Type geospatial
Old Spatial -113.7744, 48.3845, -113.2594, 48.9451
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash 58e5da6f16a6b4a89dbf7ce84e9f32b5a37652ed034c73131f5dde14e8db3def
Source Schema Version 1.1
Spatial {"type": "Polygon", "coordinates": -113.7744, 48.3845, -113.7744, 48.9451, -113.2594, 48.9451, -113.2594, 48.3845, -113.7744, 48.3845}

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