National Park Service ranger

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Park_Service_ranger

 

Park rangers presiding over US Citizenship Ceremony

 

National Park Service rangers are among the uniformed employees charged with protecting and preserving areas set aside in the National Park System by the United States Congress and the President of the United States. While all employees of the agency contribute to the National Park Service mission of preserving unimpaired the natural and cultural resources set aside by the American people for future generations, the term "park ranger" is traditionally used to describe all National Park Service employees who wear the uniform. Broadly speaking, all National Park Service rangers promote stewardship of the resources in their care - either voluntary stewardship via resource interpretation, or compliance with statute or regulation through law enforcement. These comprise the two main disciplines of the ranger profession in the National Park Service.

History

The term "ranger" is from a Middle English word dating back to 1350–1400. "Rangers" patrolled royal forests and parks to prevent "poachers" from hunting game claimed by the nobility. Use of the term "ranger" dates to the 17th century in the United States, and was drawn from the word "range" (to travel over a large area). The title "ranger" in the modern sense was first applied to a reorganization of the fire warden force in the Adirondack Park, after fires burned 80,000 acres (320 km²) in the park. The name was taken from Rogers' Rangers, a small force famous for their woodcraft that fought in the area during the French and Indian War beginning in 1755. The term was then adopted by the National Park Service.

The first Director of the National Park Service, Stephen T. Mather, reflected upon the early park rangers in the US National Parks as follows:

They are a fine, earnest, intelligent, and public-spirited body of men, these rangers. Though small in number, their influence is large. Many and long are the duties heaped upon their shoulders. If a trail is to be blazed, it is "send a ranger." If an animal is floundering in the snow, a ranger is sent to pull him out; if a bear is in the hotel, if a fire threatens a forest, if someone is to be saved, it is "send a ranger." If a Dude wants to know the why, if a Sagebrusher is puzzled about a road, it is "ask the ranger." Everything the ranger knows, he will tell you, ex-cept about himself.

Horace Albright, second director of the National Park Service, called Harry Yount, gamekeeper of Yellowstone National Park, the "father of the ranger service, as well as the first national park ranger". Yount was hired in 1880 to enforce the prohibition on hunting in the park. In addition to these duties, he would act as a guide and escort for visiting officials, such as he did in 1880 for the Secretary of the Interior Carl Schurz. Although he was paid a yearly salary of $1,000 (out of the park's overall $15,000 yearly budget) he resigned at the end of 1881. Before leaving, he suggested to the superintendent of Yellowstone that "...the game and natural curiosities of the park be protected by officers stationed at different points of the park with authority to enforce observance of laws of the park maintenance and trails." Yount pointed out that it was nearly impossible for one person to protect the game properly over the park's vast expanse.

Official classification

The park ranger position in the federal government began as a series of specialized positions in the miscellaneous Series. In 1959, the official park ranger position (GS-0025 Park Ranger) was established throughout the federal government. along with its companion series the park technician (GS-0026). The park ranger position was designated for "professional" work like management of the park (park ranger (manager)-park ranger (site manager)), or management of division (chief ranger, chief of interpretation). The park technician series was designed to handle routine technical skills, i.e., giving walks, talks, patrolling roads, fee collection.

After years of concern of pay, the National Park Service and the Office of Personnel Management agreed to consolidate the two series into a single group, to be used only for professional positions and temporary or seasonal positions. The agreement also required that the park service begin using other appropriate technical series for lower paid positions. The protection ranger series was changed to "GL"-0025 in 2005.

• 0025 – park ranger series* - The duties are to supervise, manage, and perform work in the conservation and use of federal park resources. This involves functions such as park conservation; natural, historical, and cultural resource management; and the development and operation of interpretive and recreational programs for the benefit of the visiting public.
• 0303 – miscellaneous clerk and assistant series, aka visitor use assistances - Duties include clerical, assistant, or technician work when other series are not appropriate. The work requires a knowledge of procedures and techniques involved in handling special programs. This series is commonly used for fee collectors at campgrounds and entrance stations.
• 0189 – recreation aid and assistant series - Provides support to recreation programs by performing limited aspects of recreation work, lifeguards
• 0090 – guide series - Provides or supervises interpretive and guide services to visitors to sites of public interest. Give formal talks about natural and historic features, explains engineering structures and related water developments, answers questions, and guides tours.

Duties, disciplines, and specializations

Park ranger, 1956

 

The duties of the modern park ranger are as varied and diverse as the parks where they serve, and in recent years have become more highly specialized - though they often intertwine. Regardless of the regular duties of any one discipline, the goal of all rangers remains to protect the park resources for future generations and to protect park visitors. This goal is accomplished by the professionalism and sometimes overlapping of the different functions and specialties. For example, an interpretive ranger may be trained in and perform fire suppression, emergency medicine, or search and rescue. Law enforcement rangers and other park employees may contribute to the mission of the interpretive ranger by helping park visitors make a personal connection to park resources, and appropriately utilize facilities. The spirit of teamwork in accomplishing the mission of stewardship is underscored by the fact that in many cases, the U.S. National Park Service in particular, park rangers share a common uniform regardless of work assignment.

The oldest source of information on park ranger careers was the 1956 Park Ranger by C.B. Colby. At that time, park rangers fulfilled all the demands of park operations from administrative duties to technical rescue. By 1995, Exploring Careers in the National Parks by Bob Gartner, reflected the specialization of duties and the expansion of titles covering the same work as was being done in 1956. In the 21st century, Live the Adventure, showed the park ranger profession was only becoming more complex.

The federal Office of Personnel Management sums up the diversity of the official park ranger series of professional white-collar occupational groups as follows:

This series covers positions the duties of which are to supervise, manage, and/or perform work in the conservation and use of Federal park resources. This involves functions such as park conservation; natural, historical, and cultural resource management; and the development and operation of interpretive and recreational programs for the benefit of the visiting public. Duties characteristically include assignments such as: forest and structural fire control; protection of property from natural or visitor related depredation; dissemination to visitors of general, historical, or scientific information; folk-art and craft demonstration; control of traffic and visitor use of facilities; enforcement of laws and regulations; investigation of violations, complaints, trespass/encroachment, and accidents; search and rescue missions; and management activities related to resources such as wildlife, lakeshores, seashores, forests, historic buildings, battlefields, archeological properties, and recreation areas.

Interpretation and education

• Interpretation: park rangers provide a wide range of informational services to visitors. Some rangers provide practical information—such as driving directions, train timetables, weather forecasts, trip planning resources, and beyond. Rangers may provide interpretive programs to visitors intended to foster stewardship of the resources. Interpretation in this sense includes guided tours about the park's history, ecology or both; slideshows, talks, demonstrations; informal contacts, and historical re-enactments. Interpretive rangers apply the latest scholarship to continuously evaluate and plan interpretive programming and methods. Products include traditional printed materials and outdoor wayside exhibits, and now include web-based and digital applications. All uniformed rangers, regardless of their primary duties, are often expected to be experts on the resources in their care, whether they are natural or cultural.
• Education: rangers may also engage in leading more formalized curriculum-based educational programs, meant to support and complement instruction received by visiting students in traditional academic settings, or in creating resource-based curriculum materials for other educators to utilize. Rangers often develop education programs to help educators meet specific national and local standards of instruction. Cultural resource education may include access to artifacts or replicas, and natural resource education may include the taking of samples, all under the supervision of a ranger to insure proper protection of the resources. Unlike interpretation, education programs include the opportunity to assess learning and designed to meet external standards using the protected resources as the subject.

Law enforcement and emergency services

By the 1970s the National Park Service recognized that in order to protect visitors and park resources effectively the service needed professional rangers dedicated primarily to law enforcement, emergency medical services, firefighting, and search and rescue. Although some modern NPS rangers in this specialty ("protection rangers") may be primarily engaged in law enforcement duties, the many varied environments they work in may require these employees to be competent in a variety of public safety skills. Rangers who have received a law enforcement commission wear the standard NPS uniform with the Department of the Interior law enforcement badge. In larger park units search and rescue, emergency medicine, and other functions may be a branch of the "visitor services" or "protection" division and may not require a commission. The following list describes the typical duties of a typical protection ranger:

• Law enforcement: commissioned (sworn peace officer) rangers are federal law enforcement officers with broad authority to enforce federal and state laws within National Park Service sites. In units of the National Park System, law enforcement rangers are the primary police agency. The National Park Service also employs special agents who conduct more complex criminal investigations. Rangers and agents receive extensive police training at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center and annual in-service and regular firearms training. The United States Park Police shares jurisdiction with law enforcement rangers in all National Park Service units, although this agency primarily operates in the Washington, D.C., New York City, and San Francisco areas.
• Emergency medical services: rangers are often certified as wilderness first responders, wilderness emergency medical technicians or paramedics. Rangers operate ambulances and respond to medical incidents ranging from bumps and bruises to heart attacks and major trauma.
• Firefighting: rangers are often the first to spot wildland fires and are often trained to engage in wild land firefighting; in some parks, rangers also carry out prescribed fires, and perform structural fire fighting duties.
• Search and rescue: the wilderness aspect of many areas of the National Park System offers unique natural hazards for visitors. Search and rescue trained rangers help visitors with injuries or illnesses suffered in remote wilderness areas or who become stranded in technical environments like swift water and high angle rock. These rangers are often expert climbers, boaters, or managers of the Incident Command System. Searches can range from children who wander away from Visitor Centers to expert climbers who suffer a major accident while climbing.

Education

The United States Office of Personnel Management provides the following guidance concerning education requirements for all park rangers:

Undergraduate and Graduate Education: Major study -- natural resource management, natural sciences, earth sciences, history, archeology, anthropology, park and recreation management, law enforcement/police science, social sciences, museum sciences, business administration, public administration, behavioral sciences, sociology, or other closely related subjects pertinent to the management and protection of natural and cultural resources. Course work in fields other than those specified may be accepted if it clearly provides applicants with the background of knowledge and skills necessary for successful job performance in the position to be filled.

Specialized experience may be substituted for education in some cases.

Specialized education and training

In addition to traditional undergraduate and graduate coursework, the following specialized study pertain to the park ranger profession:

Interpretation

Further information: Heritage interpretation

In the last decades of the 20th century the field of resource interpretation began to consciously professionalize itself. This has resulted in the early 21st century with colleges and universities offering coursework and degrees in interpretation.

Law enforcement

Summer or seasonal law enforcement officers must complete an approved Park Ranger Law Enforcement Academy.

Permanent employees are required to complete the National Park Service's curriculum at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (F.L.E.T.C.) in Brunswick, Georgia, where they attend a lengthy and rigorous law enforcement training program. The permanent ranger is then assigned a field training park and upon completion returns to their duty station.

Arches National Park

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arches_National_Park 

 

Arches National Park
IUCN category II (national park)
Delicate Arch with background of La Sal Mountains
Location in the United States Show map of the United StatesShow map of UtahShow all
Location	Grand County, Utah, United States
Nearest city	Moab, Utah
Coordinates	38.68333°N 109.56667°WCoordinates: 38.68333°N 109.56667°W
Area	76,679 acres (119.811 sq mi; 31,031 ha; 310.31 km2)
Established	April 12, 1929, as a national monument
Visitors	1,663,557 (in 2018)
Governing body	National Park Service
Website	Official website

Arches National Park is a national park in eastern Utah, United States. The park is adjacent to the Colorado River, 4 miles (6 km) north of Moab, Utah. More than 2,000 natural sandstone arches are located in the park, including the well-known Delicate Arch, as well as a variety of unique geological resources and formations. The park contains the highest density of natural arches in the world.

The park consists of 76,679 acres (119.811 sq mi; 31,031 ha; 310.31 km²) of high desert located on the Colorado Plateau. The highest elevation in the park is 5,653 feet (1,723 m) at Elephant Butte, and the lowest elevation is 4,085 feet (1,245 m) at the visitor center. The park receives an average of less than 10 inches (250 mm) of rain annually.

Administered by the National Park Service, the area was originally named a national monument on April 12, 1929, and was redesignated as a national park on November 12, 1971.^[6] The park received more than 1.6 million visitors in 2018.

Geology

Map of Arches National Park

 

The national park lies above an underground evaporite layer or salt bed, which is the main cause of the formation of the arches, spires, balanced rocks, sandstone fins, and eroded monoliths in the area. This salt bed is thousands of feet thick in places, and was deposited in the Paradox Basin of the Colorado Plateau some 300 million years ago (Mya) when a sea flowed into the region and eventually evaporated. Over millions of years, the salt bed was covered with debris eroded from the Uncompahgre Uplift to the northeast. During the Early Jurassic (about 210 Mya), desert conditions prevailed in the region and the vast Navajo Sandstone was deposited. An additional sequence of stream-laid and windblown sediments, the Entrada Sandstone (about 140 Mya), was deposited on top of the Navajo. Over 5,000 feet (1,500 m) of younger sediments were deposited and have been mostly eroded away. Remnants of the cover exist in the area including exposures of the Cretaceous Mancos Shale. The arches of the area are developed mostly within the Entrada formation.

The weight of this cover caused the salt bed below it to liquefy and thrust up layers of rock into salt domes. The evaporites of the area formed more unusual "salt anticlines" or linear regions of uplift. Faulting occurred and whole sections of rock subsided into the areas between the domes. In some places, they turned almost on edge. The result of one such 2,500-foot (760 m) displacement, the Moab Fault, is seen from the visitor center. 

As this subsurface movement of salt shaped the landscape, erosion removed the younger rock layers from the surface. Except for isolated remnants, the major formations visible in the park today are the salmon-colored Entrada Sandstone, in which most of the arches form, and the buff-colored Navajo Sandstone. These are visible in layer-cake fashion throughout most of the park. Over time, water seeped into the surface cracks, joints, and folds of these layers. Ice formed in the fissures, expanding and putting pressure on surrounding rock, breaking off bits and pieces. Winds later cleaned out the loose particles. A series of free-standing fins remained. Wind and water attacked these fins until, in some, the cementing material gave way and chunks of rock tumbled out. Many damaged fins collapsed. Others, with the right degree of hardness and balance, survived despite their missing sections. These became the famous arches.

Although the park's terrain may appear rugged and durable, it is extremely fragile. More than 1 million visitors each year threaten the fragile high-desert ecosystem. The problem lies within the soil's crust, which is composed of cyanobacteria, algae, fungi, and lichens that grow in the dusty parts of the park. Factors that make Arches National Park sensitive to visitor damage include being a semiarid region, the scarce, unpredictable rainfall, lack of deep freezing, and lack of plant litter, which results in soils that have both a low resistance to, and slow recovery from, compressional forces such as foot traffic. Methods of indicating effects on the soil are cytophobic soil crust index, measuring of water infiltration, and t-tests that are used to compare the values from the undisturbed and disturbed areas.

Climate

According to the Köppen climate classification system, Arches Visitor Center has a cold semi-arid climate (BSk).

Climate data for Arches National Park Headquarters (1981–2015 normals)
Month	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Year
Average high °F (°C)	44 (7)	52 (11)	64 (18)	71 (22)	82 (28)	93 (34)	100 (38)	97 (36)	88 (31)	74 (23)	56 (13)	45 (7)	71.4 (21.9)
Average low °F (°C)	22 (−6)	28 (−2)	35 (2)	42 (6)	51 (11)	60 (16)	67 (19)	66 (19)	55 (13)	42 (6)	30 (−1)	23 (−5)	44.8 (7.1)
Average precipitation inches (mm)	0.58 (15)	0.50 (13)	0.78 (20)	0.74 (19)	0.68 (17)	0.44 (11)	0.83 (21)	0.96 (24)	0.84 (21)	1.24 (31)	0.60 (15)	0.55 (14)	8.74 (221)
Average snowfall inches (cm)	1.9 (4.8)	.9 (2.3)	.7 (1.8)	0 (0)	0 (0)	0 (0)	0 (0)	0 (0)	0 (0)	0 (0)	.6 (1.5)	2.5 (6.4)	6.6 (16.8)
Average precipitation days (≥ 0.01 in)	4.0	4.4	6.1	5.3	4.6	3.1	5.2	6.6	5.2	5.5	4.5	3.9	58.4
Average snowy days (≥ 0.1 in)	1.3	.8	.4	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	.4	1.4	4.3

History

Ute petroglyphs

Humans have occupied the region since the last ice age 10,000 years ago. Fremont people and ancestral Puebloans lived in the area until about 700 years ago. Spanish missionaries encountered Ute and Paiute tribes in the area when they first came through in 1775, but the first European-Americans to attempt settlement in the area were the Mormon Elk Mountain Mission in 1855, who soon abandoned the area. Ranchers, farmers, and prospectors later settled Moab in the neighboring Riverine Valley in the 1880s. Word of the beauty of the surrounding rock formations spread beyond the settlement as a possible tourist destination.

The Arches area was first brought to the attention of the National Park Service by Frank A. Wadleigh, passenger traffic manager of the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad. Wadleigh, accompanied by railroad photographer George L. Beam, visited the area in September 1923 at the invitation of Alexander Ringhoffer, a Hungarian-born prospector living in Salt Valley. Ringhoffer had written to the railroad in an effort to interest them in the tourist potential of a scenic area he had discovered the previous year with his two sons and a son-in-law, which he called the Devils Garden (known today as the Klondike Bluffs). Wadleigh was impressed by what Ringhoffer showed him, and suggested to Park Service director Stephen T. Mather that the area be made a national monument.

The following year, additional support for the monument idea came from Laurence Gould, a University of Michigan graduate student (and future polar explorer) studying the geology of the nearby La Sal Mountains, who was shown the scenic area by local physician Dr. J. W. "Doc" Williams. 

Landscape Arch in the Devils Garden, the longest in the park and the fifth-longest in the world

A succession of government investigators examined the area, in part due to confusion as to the precise location. In the process, the name Devils Garden was transposed to an area on the opposite side of Salt Valley that includes Landscape Arch, the longest arch in the park. Ringhoffer's original discovery was omitted, while another area nearby, known locally as the Windows, was included. Designation of the area as a national monument was supported by the Park Service from 1926, but was resisted by President Calvin Coolidge's Interior Secretary, Hubert Work. Finally, in April 1929, shortly after his inauguration, President Herbert Hoover signed a presidential proclamation creating Arches National Monument, consisting of two comparatively small, disconnected sections. The purpose of the reservation under the 1906 Antiquities Act was to protect the arches, spires, balanced rocks, and other sandstone formations for their scientific and educational value. The name Arches was suggested by Frank Pinkely, superintendent of the Park Service's southwestern national monuments, following a visit to the Windows section in 1925.

In late 1938, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a proclamation that enlarged Arches to protect additional scenic features and permit development of facilities to promote tourism. A small adjustment was made by President Dwight Eisenhower in 1960 to accommodate a new road alignment.

In early 1969, just before leaving office, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed a proclamation substantially enlarging Arches. Two years later, President Richard Nixon signed legislation enacted by Congress, which significantly reduced the total area enclosed, but changed its status to a national park.

Recreational activities

Exit rappel on the popular Elephant Butte

 

Climbing Balanced Rock or any named or unnamed arch in Arches National Park with an opening larger than 3 ft (0.9 m) is banned by park regulations. Climbing on other features in the park is allowed, but regulated; in addition, slacklining and BASE jumping are banned parkwide.

Climbing on named arches within the park had long been banned by park regulations, but following Dean Potter's successful free climb on Delicate Arch in May 2006, the wording of the regulations was deemed unenforceable by the park attorney. In response, the park revised its regulations later that month, eventually imposing the current ban on arch climbing in 2014.

Approved recreational activities include auto touring, hiking, bicycling, camping at the Devils Garden campground, backpacking, canyoneering, and rock climbing, with permits required for the last three activities. Guided commercial tours and ranger programs are also available.

Astronomy is also popular in the park due to its dark skies, despite the increasing light pollution from towns such as Moab.

Publicity

Arches quarter

 

Delicate Arch is the subject of the third 2014 quarter of the U.S. Mint's America the Beautiful Quarters program commemorating national parks and historic sites. The Arches quarter had the highest production of the five 2014 national park quarters, with more than 465 million minted.

American writer Edward Abbey was a park ranger at Arches National Monument in 1956 and 1957, where he kept journals that became his book Desert Solitaire. The success of Abbey's book, as well as interest in adventure travel, has drawn many hikers, mountain bikers, and off-pavement driving enthusiasts to the area. Permitted activities within the park include camping, hiking along designated trails, backpacking, canyoneering, rock climbing, bicycling, and driving along existing roads, both paved and unpaved. The Hayduke Trail, an 812-mile (1,307 km) backpacking route named after one of Edward Abbey's characters, begins in the park.

Plants and animals

A kangaroo rat

An abundance of wildlife occurs in Arches. The list includes: spadefoot toad, antelope squirrel, scrub jay, peregrine falcon, many kinds of sparrows, red fox, desert bighorn sheep, kangaroo rat, mule deer, cougar, midget faded rattlesnake, yucca moth, western rattlesnake, and the collared lizard.

Plants also dominate the landscape in the park. The list of plants includes: prickly pear cactus, Indian ricegrass, bunch grasses, cheatgrass, lichen, moss, liverworts, Utah juniper, Mormon tea, blackbrush, cliffrose, four-winged saltbrush, pinyon pine, evening primrose, sand verbena, yucca, and sacred datura.

Biological soil crust consisting of cyanobacteria, lichen, mosses, green algae, and microfungi is found throughout southeastern Utah. The fibrous growths help keep soil particles together, creating a layer that is more resistant to erosion. The living soil layer readily absorbs and stores water, allowing more complex forms of plant life to grow in places with low precipitation levels.

Features

Balanced Rock

• Balanced Rock – a large balancing rock, the size of three school buses
• Courthouse Towers – a collection of tall stone columns
• Dark Angel – a free-standing 150-foot-tall (46 m) sandstone pillar at the end of the Devils Garden Trail
• Delicate Arch – a lone-standing arch which has become a symbol of Utah and the most recognized arch in the park
• Devils Garden – many arches and columns scattered along a ridge
• Double Arch – two arches that share a common end
• Fiery Furnace – an area of maze-like narrow passages and tall rock columns (see biblical reference, Book of Daniel, chapter 3)
• Landscape Arch – a very thin and long arch in the Devils Garden with a span of 290 feet (88 m) (the longest arch in the park)
• Petrified Dunes – petrified remnants of sand dunes blown from the ancient lakes that covered the area
• Wall Arch – located along the popular Devils Garden Trail; collapsed sometime on August 4/5, 2008

National Park of American Samoa

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Park_of_American_Samoa 

 

National Park of American Samoa
IUCN category V (protected landscape/seascape)
Pola Island on Tutuila
Location	American Samoa, United States
Nearest city	Pago Pago
Coordinates	14°15′30″S 170°41′00″WCoordinates: 14°15′30″S 170°41′00″W
Area	13,500 acres (55 km2)
Established	October 31, 1988
Visitors	28,626 (in 2018)
Governing body	National Park Service
Website	Official website

The National Park of American Samoa is a national park in the United States territory of American Samoa, distributed across three islands: Tutuila, Ofu, and Ta‘ū. The park preserves and protects coral reefs, tropical rainforests, fruit bats, and the Samoan culture. Popular activities include hiking and snorkeling. Of the park's 13,500 acres (5,500 ha), 9,000 acres (3,600 ha) is land and 4,500 acres (1,800 ha) is coral reefs and ocean. The park is the only American National Park Service system unit south of the equator.

History

Congressman Fofó Iosefa Fiti Sunia introduced a bill in 1984, at the request from Bat Preservers Association and Dr. Paul Cox, to include American Samoa to the Federal Fish and Wildlife Restoration Act. The purpose of the bill was to protect the habitat for the Flying fox as well as to protect the old rainforest. The bill marked the beginning of American Samoa's entry into the U.S. National Park System. The National Park Service began the work of establishing the national park in July 1987.

The National Park of American Samoa was established on October 31, 1988 by Public Law 100-571 but the NPS could not buy the land because of traditional communal land system. This was resolved on September 9, 1993, when the National Park Service entered into a 50-year lease for the park land from the Samoan village councils. In 2002, Congress approved a thirty percent expansion on Olosega and Ofu islands.

In 2009 an earthquake and tsunami produced several large waves, resulting in 34 confirmed deaths, more than a hundred injuries and the destruction of about 200 homes and businesses. The park encountered major damage. The visitor center and main office were destroyed but there was only one reported injury among the NPS staff and volunteers.

Tutuila

Remains of a World War II encampment and the historic tramway on the World War II Heritage Trail

 

The Tutuila unit of the park is on the north end of the island near Pago Pago. It is separated by Mount Alava (1,610 feet (490 m)) and the Maugaloa Ridge and includes the Amalau Valley, Craggy Point, Tāfeu Cove, and the islands of Pola and Manofā.

It is the only part of the park accessible by car and attracts the vast majority of visitors to the area. The park lands include a trail to the top of Mount Alava and historic World War II gun emplacement sites at Breakers Point and Blunt's Point. The trail runs along the ridge in dense forest, north of which the land slopes steeply away to the ocean.

Manua Island group

Ofu Unit

Beach at Ofu

 

Ofu island is only accessible via small fisherman boats from Ta'u island. Accommodations are available on Ofu.

Ta‘ū Unit

Ta‘ū island can be reached by a flight from Tutuila to Fiti‘uta village on Ta‘ū. Accommodations are available on Ta‘ū. A trail runs from Saua around Si’u Point to the southern coastline and stairs to the 3,170-foot (970 m) summit of Lata Mountain.

Biodiversity

Because of its remote location, diversity among the terrestrial species is low. Approximately 30% of the plants and one bird species (the Samoan starling) are endemic to the archipelago.

Fauna

The many-colored fruit dove has been found in the park.

Three species of bat are the only native mammals: two large fruit bats (Samoa flying fox and white-naped flying fox) and a small insectivore, the Pacific sheath-tailed bat. They serve an important role in pollinating the island's plants. The sheath-tailed bat was nearly eliminated by Cyclone Val in 1991. Native reptiles include the pelagic gecko, Polynesian gecko, mourning gecko, stump-toed gecko, Pacific boa and seven skink species. A major role for the park is to control and eradicate invasive plant and animal species such as feral pigs, which threaten the park's ecosystem. There are several bird species, the most predominant being the wattled honeyeater, Samoan starling, and Pacific pigeon. Other unusual birds include the Tahiti petrel, the spotless crake, and the rare (in this locality) many-colored fruit dove.

Flora

The islands are mostly covered by tropical rainforest, including cloud forest on Ta'u and lowland ridge forest on Tutuila. Most plants arrived by chance from Southeast Asia. There are 343 flowering plants, 135 ferns and about 30% are endemic plant species.

Marine

The surrounding waters are filled with a diversity of marine life, including sea turtles, humpback whales, over 950 species of fish, and over 250 coral species. Some of the largest living coral colonies (Porites) in the world are at Ta'u island.

Geology

Samoan geologic map with volcanic series labeled (click on image to enlarge)

 

Samoan bathymetry

 

Samoan tectonic setting

The volcanic islands of Samoa that dominate the acreage of the national park are composed of shield volcanoes which developed from a hot spot on the Pacific Plate, emerging sequentially from west to east. Tutulia, the largest and oldest island, probably dates from the Pliocene Epoch, approximately 1.24 to 1.4 million years ago, while the smaller islands are most likely Holocene in age.

The islands are not made up of individual volcanoes, but are rather composed of overlapping and superimposed shield volcanoes built by basalt lava flows. Much of the lava that erupted has since broken into angular fragments known as breccia. The volcanoes emerged from the intrusion of basaltic dikes from a rift zone on the ocean floor during the Pliocene Epoch, and were heavily eroded during the Pliocene and early Pleistocene Epochs, leaving behind trachyte plugs and exposed outcrops of volcanic tuff throughout the park. Ta'u island, the youngest of the islands included within the national park, is all that remains from the collapse of a shield volcano during Holocene time. This collapse produced sea cliffs over 3,000 feet high on the north side of the island, some of the highest such escarpments in the world. 

While the Samoan islands have not shown evidence of volcanism for many years, the Samoa hotspot beneath the islands continues to give indications of activity, with a submarine eruption detected just east of American Samoa in 1973. The Vailulu'u Seamount, located east of Ta'u, is a future Samoan island developing from submarine lava flows, continuing the eastward progress of volcanic development from the hotspot below the islands. The lava flows forming the seamount have been dated by radiometric methods to between 5 and 50 years, during which time the seamount has risen 14,764 feet from the ocean floor.

Evidence exists of past submarine and surface landslides as a result of weathering and other forms of erosion of the rocks and soil making up the islands. On Ta'u island, an inland escarpment known as Liu Bench (a feature of mass wasting) threatens to slump into the nearby ocean, an event which could produce a tsunami strong enough to devastate the island of Fiji to the southeast.

Olivine basalts were extruded from a N. 70° E. trending rift zone, oriented along the current Afono and Masefay bays of Tutuila, in the Pliocene or earliest Pleistocene. The Masefau dike complex and talus breccias are remnants of this rifting. Development of the Taputapu, Pago, Alofau, and Olomoana shield domes followed long parallel fissures followed, but when the Pago and Alofau summits collapsed, calderas were formed. Thick tuffs were deposited in the Pago caldera, and the southern rim was buried by lavas composed of picritic basalts, andesites, and trachytes. Subsequent erosion in Early to Middle Pleistocene enlarged the calderas, the Pago River in particular carved a deep canyon, the forerunner of today's Pago Pago Bay. A submarine shelf formed from the erosional runoff, allowing for the development of coral reefs before the island was submerged 600 to 2000 feet. Sea level fluctuations continued in the Middle to Late Pleistocene. A barrier reef formed, was submerged 200 feet, before emerging 50 feet, leaving sea caves above sea level. Leone volcanics erupted in recent time generating tuff cones undersea, such as Aunuu Island, and cinder cones on land. The pahoehoe flows buried the submerged barrier reef, enlarging the island by 8 square miles. The island has since emerged another 5 feet.

Ofu and Olosega are the remains of a single basaltic volcano, 4 miles north to south and 6 miles east to west, which formed in the Pliocene to Early Pleistocene. Remnants of one half of the caldera, ponded flows, form the north center portion of Ofu. The steepest cliffs, 600 feet high, are found on this north coast. The Ofu-Olosega island group formed along the same N. 70° W. trending rift which formed Tau, another single basaltic dome. The remnant of Tau's caldera is found on the south coast. A 2000-foot cliff marks the north coast of this island.

Upolu formed as an elongated basaltic shield volcano due to Late Tertiary to Late Pliocene rifting along a S. 70° E. trend. Remnants of these eruptions are found as inliers and monadnocks forming Mt. Tafatafao, Mt. Vaaifetu, and Mt. Spitzer. Volcanic activity renewed in the Middle Pleistocene along the same rift trend, with olivine basalt pahoehoe and aa flowing northward and southward from a point 8 miles west from the center of the island. Pleistocene cinder cones trending east and west, are aligned along the center axis of the island. Savai'i lies along this same rift trend, its surface marked by Quaternary lava flows. Examples include the olivine basalt pahoehoe which emerged from Mount Matavanu from 1905 to 1911, and the Mauga Afi chain of spatter cones of 1902.

Threats

The coral reefs are under significant threat due to rising ocean temperatures and carbon dioxide concentration, as well as sea level rise. As a result of these and other stresses, the corals that form the reefs are projected to be lost by mid-century if carbon dioxide concentrations continue to rise at their current rate.