Six Oregon sites across an elevational and climatic gradient were intensively studied. The transect began at the Pacific coast at the site called Cascade Head, passed through the outskirts of Corvallis, through a dense Douglas fir forest at Scio, through a mountain hemlock/subalpine fir community at Santiam Pass, through a Ponderosa pine community near Metolius, and ended at a site east of Sisters called Juniper. In all, the transect stretched some 300 kilometers west to east.
Goals of the project were to simulate and predict ecosystem processes such as photosynthesis, transpiration, above-ground production, nitrogen transformation, respiration, decomposition, and hydrologic processes; combine field, lab, and remote sensing techniques to estimate key vegetaion and environmental parameters; construct a "geo-referenced" database for extrapolation and testing of principles, techniques, and prediction; and verify the predictions through direct measurements of process rates or controls on processes.