Michigan Natural Features Inventory Update

The Michigan Natural Features Inventory team released photos of their late summer’s work on North and South Fox Islands on Facebook recently. Their official report should be available in March.

Per project lead Joshua Cohen “The work involved detailed mapping of the islands using sets of aerial imagery and then surveying the entirety of the public land. We characterized the vegetation in each of the mapped stands, we aged trees, evaluated soils and hydrology, and documented populations of rare plants.”

“South Fox Island is a giant moraine of clay and gravel. The erosion of the moraine, combined with fluctuating water levels, causes complex depositions of sands on top of and in front of the moraines, leading to dunes perched hundreds of feet above the lake….South Fox Island harbors some of the best remaining perched dune systems in the world as well as incredible old-growth northern white-cedar forest on the rugged back dunes.”

Much of their narrative is based on features on DNR land on the north end of the island rather than that the station proper. The station area is relatively less mature biologically and lacks the historic cedars. Nonetheless, we are happy to have helped support this project.