New River Watershed

The New River is one of the two rivers, the other being the Clear Fork River, which combine to form the Big South Fork of the Cumberland River. 

Water quality of the New River has been a long term source of concern for managers of Big South Fork. The area has been heavily impacted by extractive industries, particularly logging and mining. The resultant impacts of these activities have lead to a significant degradation in the water quality of New River, which subsequently impacts the water quality and biodiversity of the Big South Fork River.

The following KML files will help provide a visual display of the extent to which this watershed has been impacted human activities.

New River Watershed (kml 68kb)
Logging in New River Watershed (kml 73kb) 
Coal Mining in New River Watershed (kml 82kb)
Gas and Oil Wells (kml 72kb)

Connect the Cumberlands

The Nature Conservancy and the state of Tennessee have completed the largest conservation transaction in the state since the creation of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in the 1930s — to protect nearly 130,000 acres of majestic hardwood forests, mountains and streams on the Cumberland Plateau:

• The area saved — three times the size of the District of Columbia — also links to 66,000 acres of existing public lands.
• The result is a wildlife corridor amounting to 300 square miles of protected forestland for black bear, elk, white-tailed deer, turkey and numerous migratory songbirds such as the cerulean warbler and the wood thrush.
• All 193,000 acres of these lands are now also open to the public for recreation, including hunting, hiking and fishing.

The following KML files will help provide a visual display of the extent to which this acquistion now helps protect the Cumberland Plateau.

Connect the Cumberlands (kmz 150kb)

Obed Wild and Scenic River

Located on the Cumberland Plateau, the Obed Wild and Scenic River protects large segments of Clear Creek, Daddy's Creek and the Obed River.

The provided KLZ of the Obed Wild and Scenic River will provide you with a visual overlay of the Obed and its place on the Cumberland Plateau.

National Weather Service

• Use of the National Weather Service KML Generator will require the previous installation of Google Earth (see above). From this link you may select the local radar you wish displayed. Generally Knoxville or Morristown, Tennessee will give the best coverage for Big South Fork. After you submit the request, the file download window will ask if you wish to open or save the file. If you select open, Google Earth will open automatically and display the information. 

Wildland Fire Information

• InciWeb is an interagency wildland fire incident information management system. The system was developed with two primary missions: The first was to provide a standardized reporting tool for the Public Affairs community during the course of wildland fire incidents. The second was to provide the public a single source of information related to active wildland fire information.
  
• When viewing the information, yellow hardhats reflect current/ongoing incidents while white hardhats refer to past incidents.
  
• The KML file provided will update to load the most current informtion each time Google Earth is launched.

Other Neat Google Files

While these files will display information which has absolutely nothing to do with Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area, they are provided for your enjoyment and exploration.

• Weather and Storm Tracking Tools Collection (kml 1kb) – Bundled together by Google Earth Blog, simply drag this network link into your Places folder to keep it handy. It won't take up space until you turn it on. It first loads several folders of weather tools you can explore. You may want to turn only one layer on at a time - these layers weren't designed to all be turned on at once. Although, some of the layers are complimentary (like current lightning strikes with clouds or storms turned on). Also, be aware, some layers take a short time to activate as the network connection reaches out and accesses the latest information ( global cloud map is one example). Check out the Weather Bonk layer, it provides an amazing amount of local information such as the weather information from Big South Fork.

• Earthquakes (kml 107kb) - U.S.G.S maintains real time - worldwide data on all earthquakes greater then Magnitude 1. All recorded earthquakes within the last 7 days are displayed by magnitude and overlaid on Google Earth.

• Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (kml 222kb) - The Sierra Club invites you to "visit" the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge using Google Earth. Through this KML you'll see the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge's boundaries, oil wells across Alaska, caribou information, and more.
• • There are many additional layers with additional information which may be turned-on by the user.

• America’s Wild Legacy (kml 358 kb) - The Sierra Club is seeking to protect US public lands from threats like oil and gas drilling, unchecked development, irresponsible recreation, logging, and global warming. In order to save what remains of the wild, the Sierra Club has launched a campaign to protect fifty-two of the most exceptional places--one in every state, plus Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia--over the next ten years. They have released a new report called America's Wild Legacy.
• • The KML shows all 52 locations as placemarks, with information included in each description bubble including photos, and links to the report and other information.

• Holocene Volcanoes (kml 492kb)- Smithsonian Global Volcanism Program data for known or inferred Holocene volcanoes are now available as a Google Earth layer, displaying a photo (when available), geographic data, and links to more detailed information from the GVP and international volcano observatories or other websites focusing on regional volcanoes.
• • Users will note a frequent mismatch between plotted volcano locations and the summits of volcanoes on the satellite imagery forming the base layer for Google Earth. This can occur for several reasons. In many cases the volcano is not a single edifice, but a volcanic field with many individual vents. Because the Smithsonian data registers the center coordinates for the entire volcanic field, it typically will not correspond to a specific volcanic vent.

As noted above, when you close out of Google Earth, the program will ask you if you wish to place these items in “My Places”. If you respond “yes” these features will be stored on your computer and will display the next time you reopen the program.