{"id":708,"date":"2014-01-24T16:26:13","date_gmt":"2014-01-24T21:26:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nybg.org\/science-talk\/?p=708"},"modified":"2014-01-27T09:42:38","modified_gmt":"2014-01-27T14:42:38","slug":"an-expedition-to-tafelberg-the-lore-and-allure-of-table-mountain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/2014\/01\/an-expedition-to-tafelberg-the-lore-and-allure-of-table-mountain\/","title":{"rendered":"An Expedition to Tafelberg: The Lore and Allure of \u201cTable Mountain\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fabian A. Michelangeli, Ph.D.<\/a>, is an Associate Curator of the Institute of Systematic Botany at The New York Botanical Garden<\/a>. His research focuses in part on the evolution, identification, and classification of neotropical plants. This is the first of four posts about an expedition last year to Suriname in northeastern South America.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\"Our<\/a>
Our first view of the Tafelberg, rising from the surrounding forest as we fly into Rudi Kappel airstrip<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As a field biologist,\u00a0you\u00a0see some places mentioned in old literature\u00a0that have achieved classical status, places that you\u00a0think you will\u00a0never\u00a0be able to visit. Until recently, Tafelberg\u2014Dutch for “table mountain”\u2014in central Suriname was\u00a0one of those places for me.<\/p>\n

Geologically, Tafelberg is part of the Roraima formation of northeastern South America, with a layer of sandstone that lies over a granitic base, similar to several mountains in southern Venezuela that\u00a0are of a type usually called a\u00a0tepui<\/em> (from the word for “mountain” in the language of the indigenous Pemon people). Tepuis<\/em> often have steep rock cliffs that rise from the surrounding forest or savannas, giving these mountains not only their characteristic table-top shape but also a sense that their summits are effectively isolated. This shape and sense of isolation were prominently featured in Arthur Conan Doyle\u2019s novel The Lost World<\/em>, contributing to the lore and mystery that surround these mountains.
\n
\nAmong tepuis<\/em>, Tafelberg is particularly interesting because it is the eastern-most of these fascinating mountains, and it is nearly 200 miles\u00a0from the nearest tepui<\/em> to the west, so it is\u00a0potentially isolated from similar environments. I started my career as a biologist working on some higher,\u00a0better known tepuis<\/em>, such as Roraima in the southeastern\u00a0corner of Venezuela, but\u00a0after I started working at The New York Botanical Garden<\/a>, I saw many of the plant specimens collected by Garden scientist Basset Maguire<\/a> on Tafelberg during\u00a0his three-month expedition in 1944. All of this contributed to my desire to visit this mountain. And then, last year,\u00a0I was unexpectedly invited to participate in an expedition to the summit of Tafelberg,\u00a0led by University of Kansas entomologist Andrew Short.<\/p>\n

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To get to the summit of Tafelberg,\u00a0Maguire had to travel by river 28 days and then cut a trail through savannas and forests for the next three and a half weeks. For us, the trip was much easier. We flew to an airstrip immediately south of the mountain, where we established a base camp and waited for the helicopter that would take us to the summit\u00a0a couple of days later.<\/p>\n

One exciting aspect of this trip was the diverse team that participated. We had six scientists working on a variety of organisms and spanning different institutions and stages in our careers. In addition to Andrew, the aquatic insect team also included\u00a0Devin Bloom,\u00a0a post-doctoral fellow\u00a0in Andrew\u2019s lab and an expert on South American fish. Paul Obouter, the director of the National Zoological Collection of Suriname, and Vanessa Kadosoe, a student at the University of Suriname, were in charge of collecting herpetological specimens\u2014frogs and reptiles. Lastly, joining me on the botany team was Julian Aguirre, a graduate student at the City University of New York whom I am advising\u00a0on his dissertation about\u00a0bromeliads. Joining the six of us was a\u00a0great team of five people who\u00a0provided logistical support, such as cooking, camp-building, trail-cutting, and serving as guides.<\/p>\n

\"Our<\/a>
Our team for the Tafelberg 2013 expedition (L-R): Fabian, Bert, Paul, Vanessa, Julian, Devin, Andrew, Hermina, Spears, Mani, Uwawa<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Although the main objective of the expedition was the summit of Tafelberg, we\u00a0took advantage of our stay at the bottom of the mountain. Within minutes of landing, we started collecting plants that grow in very different environments: white sand savannas, Mauritia palm swamps, flooded forests, and non-flooded forests. These collections from the surrounding lowlands would be a great point of comparison to assess how different\u00a0the vegetation of the summit was.<\/p>\n

We were ready to head to the summit. However,\u00a0as I’ll describe in my next post, getting to the top of the mountain meant moving not just us but all of our gear.<\/p>\n

The expedition to Tafelberg was funded by a grant to Andrew Short from the National Geographic Society.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fabian Michelangeli opens with a picturesque view of “Table Mountain” in this four-part Suriname travelogue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":711,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[116],"tags":[225,61,228,226,227],"yoast_head":"\nAn Expedition to Tafelberg: The Lore and Allure of \u201cTable Mountain\u201d - Science Talk Archive<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nybg.org\/blogs\/science-talk\/2014\/01\/an-expedition-to-tafelberg-the-lore-and-allure-of-table-mountain\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"An Expedition to Tafelberg: The Lore and Allure of \u201cTable Mountain\u201d - 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