FACTS
Definition
Forensic Anthropology Center at Texas State, San Marcos Texas. Semi-arid Hill Country climate, providing a third distinct US regional ADD calibration baseline alongside Knoxville (temperate) and STAFS (subtropical humid).
- Full name
- Forensic Anthropology Center at Texas State
- Location
- San Marcos, Texas
- Climate
- Semi-arid Hill Country
- Role
- Third US regional ADD calibration baseline alongside Knoxville and STAFS
Common questions
Why do decomposition researchers need more than one regional body farm baseline?+
Decomposition rate and accumulated degree-day (ADD) relationships are strongly influenced by local climate, insect fauna, and soil conditions, so a calibration built only in one region (like Knoxville's temperate climate) can misestimate postmortem interval when applied to a semi-arid or subtropical case; FACTS extends the baseline data to a distinct climate type.
How does FACTS's Hill Country climate change decomposition compared with Knoxville or STAFS?+
Semi-arid conditions typically bring lower humidity and more variable temperature swings than Knoxville's temperate or STAFS's subtropical humid settings, which affects desiccation rates, insect activity windows, and how reliably ADD models transfer between regions.
Related terms
- Accumulated Degree Days (ADD)
- The sum of daily mean temperatures above a threshold (usually 0 °C) over a period of interest. Used as a measure of...
- AFTER
- Australian Facility for Taphonomic Experimental Research, University of Technology Sydney (2016). First body farm outside the United States; subtropical eastern Australian decomposition...
- Anthropology Research Facility (ARF)
- The first outdoor human decomposition research facility, established by William M. Bass at the University of Tennessee Knoxville in 1981. The foundational...
- Cadaver Decomposition Island (CDI)
- The localised area of soil and vegetation altered by the decomposition fluids and gases released from a body. A CDI has a...
- Human Tissue Act 2004 (HTA)
- UK legislation governing the use of human tissue for scheduled purposes including research. Any outdoor human decomposition research facility in the United...
- Necrobiome
- The microbial community associated with a decomposing body, encompassing the thanatomicrobiome (internal community at the time of death) and the successive soil...
- Scavenger Succession
- The sequence in which vertebrate carrion feeders (dogs, coyotes, vultures, raccoons, rodents, feral pigs) interact with decomposing remains. Documented systematically by Haglund...
- STAFS
- Southeast Texas Applied Forensic Science Facility, Sam Houston State University, Huntsville Texas (2009). The second major US body farm; subtropical humid Gulf...
- Willed-Body Donation
- The voluntary, pre-mortem consent by an individual to donate their remains to a specific research programme after death. Distinguished from anatomical donation...