Kimmerer transformed a spontaneous field observation into her thesis question.

Evidence

I was looking to find a thesis question and this one found me. What was the source of the vertical stratification that striped the cliff? … I had some ideas, of course. I’d climbed too many mountains not to notice the changes in vegetation with elevation. Elevational zonation usually results from temperature gradients and it gets cooler the higher you go. I imagined that there would be some kind of environmental gradient that changed as the cliff rose from the water, and the moss pattern would follow. — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Gathering Moss, 279

Categorization

• QUESTION: Does she ever return to explain the actual gradient source, or does the red paint story end the chapter?