Steigerwaldt – Chequamegon NEON - United States of America

Basic Information
Site Name
Steigerwaldt – Chequamegon NEON
Short name
STEI
Country
United States of America
Web Address
https://www.neonscience.org/field-sites/stei
Site Manager
Peter Weishampel
Site Description
Steigerwaldt Land Services (STEI) is a terrestrial site that consists of two geographically separate project areas in north-central Wisconsin. The Steigerwaldt Land Services property, where the tower plots are located, encompasses 0.3 km2 (77 acres) in Lincoln County, WI and is approximately 1.6 km (1 mi.) north of NEON’s Treehaven site (TREE). This property is owned and managed by Steigerwaldt Land Services, Inc., a forestry and real estate consulting business. This site is in Major Land Resource Area (MLRA) 94D - Northern Highland Sandy Drift. The distributed plots are within a section of the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest in eastern Price County, WI, about 30 miles northwest of the STEI tower. This land is managed by the U.S. Forest Service. This site encompasses 23.4 km2 (5785 acres) and is in MLRA 90A - Wisconsin and Minnesota Thin Loess and Till, Northern Part. STEI is located within the Great Lakes Domain (D05), which includes northern Ohio, Michigan, northern Wisconsin, and parts of Indiana and Illinois. D05 hosts four other NEON field sites: two aquatic and two terrestrial, located in Wisconsin and Michigan.
Last modified
2025-09-18 16:09:23

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General Characteristics and Status
Site Status
Operational
Year Established
2015
Observed properties
Affiliation and Network Specific Information
Affiliation
GERI✔This site is a verified "GERI" member.
NEON✔ (STEI)This site is a verified "NEON" member.
Photos
Bumblebee on Thistle flower
Bumblebee on Thistle flower
Geographic
View in site map
Centroid/Representative Coordinates

Latitude: 45.50894 Longitude: -89.58637

Size
ca. 31.00ha
Elevation (average)
476.00msl
Elevation (min)
466.00msl
Elevation (max)
536.00msl
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Site information [.json]

Centroid/representative coordinates [.shp] [.kml] [.geojson]
Bounding Box [.shp] [.kml] [.geojson]
GEO-BON Biome
Terrestrial
Biome
Mixed Forest
Ecosystem Type
Forest
Deciduous Forest
Mixed Forest
Air Temperature: Average Annual
4.80°C
Precipitation Annual
797.00mm
Geology
STEI is within the Superior Upland Province of the Laurentian Upland and has been formed by glaciation. The bedrock consists of primarily Early Proterozoic mafic metavolcanic rock with parts underlain by gneiss. The parent material at the tower site is dominantly sandy loam till, whereas the parent material at the distributed plot area consists of loamy glacial till, sandy glaciofluvial deposits, loess over loamy till, loamy glaciofluvial deposits over stratified sandy and gravelly outwash, sandy and/or gravelly outwash, and herbaceous and woody organic material.
Vegetation
Plant communities at the distributed plot area are dominated by northern hardwood trees (sugar maple, red maple, aspen, paper and river birch, beech, and oaks) with intermixed conifers (white pine, red pine, jack pine, white spruce, balsam fir and hemlock). The site also contains acid bogs intermixed with black spruce and dominated by white cedar and black ash. The tower site is an early successional, even-aged aspen stand, interspersed with red maple and balsam fir trees.
Soils
Soils sampled at the STEI site were dominated by glacial till or loamy mantled outwash soils with material ranging from sandy to loamy, many of which had a considerable amount of coarse fragments including gravels, cobbles, and stones up to 600 mm (23.6 in.) in diameter. The soil series found at STEI is Moodig sandy loam (0 - 4% slopes), within the subgroup Alfic Epiaquods.
Site Type
Non-stationary land-based site
Design of Experimentation
mainly experimentation
Scale of Experimentation
beyond catchment scale
Design of Observation
mainly observation
Scale of Observation
beyond catchment
Permanent Power Supply
No
Accessible All Year
Yes
Permanent Operation
No