 There are sites like this in Wyoming that are essentially undisturbed by man, like this one near Thermopolis. They're important because they represent a standard for comparison by which we can judge the health of rangeland and the quality of our management. We're all familiar with the idea of standards and measurements. In the Biblical story, Noah used the cubit, the distance from the tip of his fingers to his elbow as a unit of length to measure his arc. The foot has been a similar standard for centuries. We also take measurements of healthy people so that when their condition changes, we can tell how sick they are. When scientists and managers want to know the potential or current condition of a piece of land or a vegetation community, they first look for a standard of comparison. They try to find areas such as this one that have not been disturbed by human activities such as cultivation or livestock grazing. We call such undisturbed sites relict areas. The assumptions are that if an area has not been disturbed, it will naturally have the kind of plant and animal community that its particular combination of soil, climate, and landform is capable of producing. Once we have the relict area as a standard for comparison to tell us what kind of life forms and productivity to expect, we can compare it to similar sites to judge their health and productivity and the quality of our management. I'm Gene Gade of the University of Wyoming Cooperative Extension Service.