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Photograph by Michael Nichols
By David Quammen
On a gentle slope above a trail junction in Sequoia National Park, about 7,000 feet above sea level in the southern Sierra Nevada, looms a very big tree. Its trunk is rusty red (эпитет), thickened with deep layers of furrowed bark, and 27 feet in diameter at the base. Its footprint would cover your dining room (простое предложение). Trying to glimpse its tippy top, or craning to see the shape of its crown, could give you(обращение к читателю) a sore neck. That is, this tree is so big you can scarcely look at it all. It has a name, the President, bestowed about 90 years ago by admiring humans. It’s a giant sequoia, a member of Sequoiadendron giganteum(латинские названия), one of several surviving species of redwoods.
It’s not(сокращение) quite the largest tree on Earth. It’s the second largest. Recent research by scientist Steve Sillett of Humboldt State University and his colleagues has confirmed that the President ranks number two among all big trees that have ever been measured—and Sillett’s team has measured quite a few. (сложносочиненное предложение) It doesn’t stand so tall as the tallest of coast redwoods or of Eucalyptus regnans (латинские названия) in Australia, but height isn’t everything; it’s far more massive than any coast redwood or eucalypt.(сложноподчиненное предложение) Its dead spire, blasted by lightning, rises to 247 feet.(статистические данные) Its four great limbs, each as big as a sizable tree (сравнение ), elbow outward from the trunk around halfway up, billowing into a thick crown like a mushroom cloud flattening against the sky. Although (вводная конструкция) its trunk isn’t quite so bulky as that of the largest giant, the General Sherman, its crown is fuller than the Sherman’s. The President holds nearly two billion leaves.(статистические данные)
Trees grow tall and wide-crowned as a measure of competition with other trees, racing upward, reaching outward for sunlight and water. And a tree doesn’t stop getting larger—as a terrestrial mammal does, or a bird, their size constrained by gravity—once it’s sexually mature. A tree too is constrained by gravity, but not in the same way as a condor or a giraffe. It doesn’t need to locomote, and it fortifies its structure by continually adding more wood. Given the constant imperative of seeking resources from the sky and the soil, and with sufficient time, a tree can become huge and then keep growing. Giant sequoias are gigantic because they are very, very old.(repetition-повторение- используется для того чтобы показать что они очень древние )
They are so old because they have survived all the threats that could have killed them. They’re too strong to be knocked over by wind. Their heartwood and bark are infused with tannic acids and other chemicals that protect against fungal rot. Wood-boring beetles hardly faze them. Their thick bark is flame resistant. Ground fires, in fact (вводная конструкция), are good for sequoia populations, burning away competitors, opening sequoia cones, allowing sequoia seedlings to get started amid the sunlight and nurturing ash. Lightning hurts the big adults but usually doesn’t kill them. So they grow older and bigger across the millennia.
Another (вводная конструкция, демонстрирующая последовательность изложения)factor that can end the lives of big trees, of course (вводная конструкция), is logging. Many giant sequoias fell to the ax during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. But the wood of the old giants was so brittle that trunks often shattered when they hit the ground, and what remained had little value as lumber. It went into shingles, fence posts, grape stakes, and other scrappy products. Given the difficulties of dealing with logs 20 feet thick, broken or unbroken, the trees were hardly worth cutting. Sequoia National Park was established in 1890, and automobile tourism soon showed that giant sequoias were worth more alive.
Ноябрь 2012 Журнал National Geographic
1. Автор Дэвид Quammen (born February 1948) is an award-winning American science, nature and travel writer and the author of fifteen books, five of them fiction National Geographic, Harper's, Rolling Stone, the New York Times Book Review and other periodicals
Фотограф Майкл Николс
2. Стиль научный, подстиль научно популярный
Особенности текста:
· предназначен для читателя, интересующегося вопросами науки;
· терминологическая лексика присутствует в минимальных количествах;
· научные понятия вводятся с опорой на бытовое сознание читателей, на их практический опыт, поэтому в таких текстах встречаются эмоционально-экспрессивные элементы, сравнения, метафоры, аналогии
Черты, характерные для данного текста - ясность, последовательность, логика в изложении
Вначале заголовок, который вовлекает читателя (Forest Giant). Затем краткое описание (). Затем основная информация статьи.
про предложения: простые, сложносочиненные/подчиненные
Лексика общеупотребительная, нейтральная, присутствуют слова общей научной лексики. Повествование ведется от третьего лица ед.числа. Это достигается отсутствием использования местоимения Я. Однако в тоже время автор использует обращение к читателю (местоимение you)
слова общей научной лексики :
species
Research
Scientist
Mammal
Структура: есть вводный абзац, который завлекает читателя
Вся статья разделена на абзацы
Основная идея статьи: заинтересовать читателей материалом о существующих деревьях-гигантах
Вообще статья о гигантских секвойях, ученых исследовавшие их
Предложения сложные, распространённые
Лексика: общеупотребительная, нейтральная, но присутствуют специальные слова. Термины, статистические данные, латинские названия
Повествование от третьего лица, нет употреблений местоимений «я»,
Есть иллюстрация- фотография этих секвой с исследователями