Videos

Duration:

11 minutes, 31 seconds

Night skies over Chaco Culture National Historical Park are much the same as they were a thousand years ago, when the ancient Chacoan people inhabited Chaco Canyon. In fact, the park is one of the best places in the country to stargaze and experience natural darkness.

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  From the brink of extinction to the path of survival: The sentry milk-vetch recovery project

  The tiny, federally endangered sentry milk-vetch (Astragalus cremnophylax var. cremnophylax) is a perennial herb that forms a one inch tall by eight inch wide mat in shallow pockets of soil on the Kaibab limestone. It is endemic to the Grand Canyon, and only grows within 25 feet of the canyon rim. Since 2006, when the Sentry Milk-Vetch Recovery Plan was completed, Grand Canyon National Park has partnered with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Arboretum at Flagstaff, and the Grand Canyon Association to reverse the decline of this species.

  Duration:

  8 minutes, 9 seconds

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  70 years of montane forest change in Grand Canyon National Park

  The chance rediscovery in Grand Canyon National Park (GRCA) of an early 1900s dataset used to create the park’s first vegetation map led to a rare opportunity to examine forest change in the park since 1935. In 2004, ecologist John Vankat led an effort to resample the historical plots, and shares his conclusions about forest development and the wide range of ecological conditions characterizing GRCA ponderosa pine, mixed conifer, and spruce-fir forests.

  Duration:

  6 minutes, 8 seconds

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  It’s Alive! Biological Soil Crusts of the Sonoran and Chihuahuan Deserts

  Don't bust the crust! Before you go traipsing across the desert, find out about this living groundcover--what it's made of, why it's important, and how to protect it--in this short film from the National Park Service Sonoran Desert Network.

  Duration:

  4 minutes, 8 seconds

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  New finds at Petrified Forest National Park: Long-nosed leopard lizard

  The long-nosed leopard lizard (Gambelia wislizenii) is a large lizard, with an adult body length about 5 ½ inches long and a tail that can be twice as long as the body. It inhabits desert scrub and semi-arid grasslands and, in Arizona, is found throughout the southern and western portions of the state, as well as in the northeastern plateau region. In 2012 researchers discovered it at Petrified Forest National Park, the lizard’s first documented occurrence in the park.

  Duration:

  4 minutes, 49 seconds

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  Paleontology at Petrified Forest National Park: Revueltosaurus callenderi

  In 2004 at Petrified Forest National Park paleontologist Bill Parker discovered a graveyard, or quarry, of the bones of a crocodile-like creature that lived about 215 million years ago. In 2006 he found the first nearly complete Revueltosaurus callenderi skeleton. By 2012 they had found eleven individuals, including one well-preserved skeleton that provided some of the previously missing pieces.

  Duration:

  4 minutes, 41 seconds

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  Archeology in the Expansion Lands at Petrified Forest National Park

  In 2011, Petrified Forest National Park acquired more than 26,000 acres of land which were expected to yield a significant number of archeological sites new to science. The results of informal surveys in 2012 far exceeded expectations. Every time archeologist Bill Reitze went out to these new areas of the park, he would discover something new, including magnificent petroglyph panels and extensive pueblo sites.

  Duration:

  4 minutes, 42 seconds

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  Bent's Old Fort National Historic Site

  Here the expansive prairie grasses attracted and fed buffalo herds; Plains Indians shot the beast and tanned the hide; the hide was a highly sought after trade item. What's another way in which prairie grasses were essential to this site?

  Duration:

  5 minutes, 21 seconds

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  Fort Union National Monument

  Fort Union was a miniature city of 2,000 during the height of its existence along the Santa Fe Trail. It was built from the earth and surrounding natural resources. Can you name two?

  Duration:

  6 minutes, 58 seconds

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  Pecos National Historic Park

  Examining the connections between humans and nature along the Santa Fe Trail.

  Duration:

  5 minutes, 15 seconds

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  Washita Battlefield National Historic Site

  Tragedy, Hope & Land that Provides.

  Duration:

  6 minutes, 50 seconds

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  Fort Larned National Historic Site

  1859: The fort was built to protect Santa Fe travelers and supplies from Plains Indians. Yet the Indians were only protecting their homelands from the people who were cutting down forests and killing bison. What other environmental characteristics helped the soldiers to exist here?

  Duration:

  6 minutes, 27 seconds

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  A Day on the Lake

  Glen Canyon National Recreation Area covers 1.2 million acres, stretching from Lees Ferry, Arizona northeast to Canyonlands National Park in Utah and encompassing magnificent vistas, geologic wonders, and a vast panorama of human prehistory and history. NAU student Ryan Gahris explores the history, the science and the beauty of Glen Canyon NRA in four videos and a photo gallery. This series is dedicated to portraying the area in all of its splendor and fragility.

  Duration:

  4 minutes, 47 seconds

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  Between the Layers

  One of the best places to study Late Triassic terrestrial ecosystems is the Chinle Formation in Petrified Forest National Park (PEFO), Arizona. Here, sedimentary rocks ~220-210 million years old preserve a rich record of paleoenvironmental and biotic change. These strata are renowned for their preservation of fossil wood, leaves, and vertebrate animals, including early dinosaurs. They also created a record of the climate change, from more humid conditions recorded in older strata to arid conditions recorded in younger rocks. These Late Triassic environmental changes preserved in rocks at PEFO, and their relationship to observed changes in the species of fossil plants and animals found there, are a key to understanding how Late Triassic climate shaped the evolution of ecosystems on land. NAU student Ryan Gahris spent a day with PEFO paleontologist Bill Parker who explains how recent studies of Late Triassic geology and paleontology at PEFO document a sudden change in plant and vertebrate species in the middle of the Sonsela Member of the Chinle Formation, the major petrified wood bearing layer in the park. This change is the largest biotic turnover event recorded in the rock record at PEFO, and is associated with a distinctive red silcrete layer and may have been related to the impact of a large asteroid or comet in what is now Quebec, Canada.

  Duration:

  10 minutes, 21 seconds

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  Historical Relevance: Lee's Ferry

  Glen Canyon National Recreation Area covers 1.2 million acres, stretching from Lees Ferry, Arizona northeast to Canyonlands National Park in Utah and encompassing magnificent vistas, geologic wonders, and a vast panorama of human prehistory and history. NAU student Ryan Gahris explores the history, the science and the beauty of Glen Canyon NRA in four videos and a photo gallery. This series is dedicated to portraying the area in all of its splendor and fragility.

  Duration:

  6 minutes, 38 seconds

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  Experience: Coyote Gulch Backpacking

  Glen Canyon National Recreation Area covers 1.2 million acres, stretching from Lees Ferry, Arizona northeast to Canyonlands National Park in Utah and encompassing magnificent vistas, geologic wonders, and a vast panorama of human prehistory and history. NAU student Ryan Gahris explores the history, the science and the beauty of Glen Canyon NRA in four videos and a photo gallery. This series is dedicated to portraying the area in all of its splendor and fragility.

  Duration:

  6 minutes, 5 seconds

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  Simple Beauty

  Glen Canyon National Recreation Area covers 1.2 million acres, stretching from Lees Ferry, Arizona northeast to Canyonlands National Park in Utah and encompassing magnificent vistas, geologic wonders, and a vast panorama of human prehistory and history. NAU student Ryan Gahris explores the history, the science and the beauty of Glen Canyon NRA in four videos and a photo gallery. This series is dedicated to portraying the area in all of its splendor and fragility.

  Duration:

  4 minutes, 42 seconds

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  The Park Of Present History

  John Lorenzo Hubbell purchased what was to become the Hubbell Trading Post in 1878. The oldest continuously operating trading post on the Navajo Nation, Hubbell Trading Post is still providing goods for local residents as well as park visitors. This video was filmed over the course of one day at the Hubbell Trading Post and was created by multimedia journalist, Ryan Gahris.

  Duration:

  6 minutes, 56 seconds

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  Preservation Perseverance

  Created by Northern Arizona University students, Jackie Philleo, Samantha Schutter, and Diandra Markgraf, the documentary, Preservation Perserverance, examines the challenges in preserving ancient ruins for future generations.

  Duration:

  6 minutes, 37 seconds

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  Green Rangers and Park Stewards

  Montezuma Castle and Tuzigoot National Monuments have embarked on a multi-pronged resource outreach effort to work with local schools, community groups, and families to engage youth, ranging from elementary to high school grades, at the monuments. NAU students Jim Benbow, Cori Cusker, Hannah Green, and Hanna Smolan conducted interviews of National Park Service staff and local community members for their documentary video which describes the Green Ranger program and the Park Stewards high school program. The Green Ranger program is for kids between the ages of 9-12 years and teaches them about native plants and habitat restoration in the field. The Park Stewards high school program was funded in part through the National Park Foundation and brings high school students to the monuments to learn about and practice habitat restoration techniques. Montezuma Well, where both programs are based,is part of Montezuma Castle National Monument in the Verde Valley of Arizona.

  Duration:

  9 minutes, 11 seconds

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  Wall to Wall

  Canyon de Chelly National Monument preserves archaeological, historical, cultural and natural resources representing nearly 4000 years of human occupation by Ancestral Pueblo Indians, and historic and modern-day Navajo peoples. However, invasive plant infestations of tamarisk and Russian olive trees have altered stream channels and riparian ecosystems, and threaten traditional farming and ethnological uses by Navajo peoples. This video, created by Yffy Yossifor, Cassandra Chee and Brittany Tabor, chronicles how the National Park Service worked with residents of the canyon to restore it to the condition that the Navajo elders remember, when vegetation did not choke the canyon floor, and the canyon was visible from wall to wall.

  Duration:

  9 minutes, 31 seconds