Vegetation Characterization Products Now Available for Fossil Butte National Monument

USGS-National Park Service (NPS) Vegetation Characterization Program (VCP) documentation for Fossil Butte National Monument has been completed and is available on the VCP Web site. Products include aerial photography - graphic of orthophoto mosaic, spatial orthophoto data, and flightline index; project report - photointerpretation key, vegetation descriptions, vegetation key, photos of map class, and accuracy assessment; field data - graphic of field plots, plots field database, physical descriptive for plots, and species list for plots; geospatial vegetation information - graphics of vegetation communities, geodatabase, and plot and AA photos; accuracy assessment information - graphic of accuracy assessment points, and contingency matrix; metadata, and a link to NPS information about Fossil Butte National Monument. The goal of the VCP is to classify and map the vegetation communities of National Parks that have a natural resource component. Complete documentation is currently available for seventy-three park units and two U.S. Fish and Wildlife refuge units. The VCP is managed by the USGS Center for Biological Informatics in cooperation with the NPS Inventory and Monitoring Program. The USGS Vegetation Characterization effort includes the management and upkeep of the VCP protocols, Web-based access to the standards, and the Web-based access to NPS Vegetation Characterization program finished products.

(Photo: Fossil Butte National Monument - is located in Lincoln County in southwestern Wyoming. It can be accessed from U.S. Highway 30 approximately 21 km (13 miles) west of Kemmerer, and includes 3,351 ha (8,281 acres).