The Wooster Tree Ring Lab is part of the international tree-ring community, that investigated the global extent and seasonal timing of the rapid increase in atmospheric 14C concentrations from the two largest cosmogenic events in 774 and 993 CE. The initiative named “COSMIC” is lead by Ulf Büntgen (Cambridge University), Lukas Wacker, and J. Diego Galván (Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL) and measured these two cosmogenic events in 44 of the world’s longest tree-ring chronologies. These events are now key marker years and a powerful dating tool. The study was published in Nature Communication and can be found here.
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New Publication Detects Cosmic Events in Tree Rings Worldwide
A recent publication that includes the Wooster Tree Ring Lab was published in Nature Communications. See this press release from Cambridge University who lead the effort.
A Field Blog from A Recent National Geographic Grant
Results of fieldwork in Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve by collaborators from Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and University of Alaska – Fairbanks are described here in this excellent blog. This narrative is written by scientist, author and collaborator on the project Lauren Oakes. Lauren is also author of a forthcoming book on Alaska Cedar Decline and Climate.
Concluding 2018 summer research in the Tree Ring Lab
Summer 2018 research in the Tree Ring Lab has come to a close. The group of five students worked on a variety of projects, learning about the climate and history of Ohio and Alaska, and the application of different dendrochronological techniques and statistical analyses. They also gained experience effectively conveying their research to others and writing official reports of their findings.
The summer research team on their last day working together (Left to right: Greg Wiles, Nick Wiesenberg, Victoria Race ’19, Juwan Shabazz ’19, Kendra Devereux ’21, Josh Charlton ’19, and Alexis Lanier ’20).
AMRE students with a sampled oak tree at Brown’s Lake Bog in Wooster, Ohio (Alexis Lanier ’20, Juwan Shabazz ’19, and Kendra Devereux ’21).
The AMRE team accomplished a lot during the eight weeks they were here on campus. Their research started with the principles of dendrochronology, when they learned how to count individual tree rings and measure their widths under the microscopes. From here, the team learned how to run this data in different programs like COFECHA and ARSTAN. This process allowed them to date many historical structures across Northeast Ohio such as Gingery Barn and Miller House and Barn. You can find a full list on the TRL’s reports page.
AMRE students with
A New Publication on the Russian Fareast
Two alumni of the Wooster Tree Ring Lab and Wooster Geology, Clara Deck (’17, now at the University of Maine studying ice sheets) and Sarah Frederick (’15, now at The University of Arizona studying drought and streamflow) together with Greg and Nick, and colleagues in the US and Russia published a new study on tree growth and climate in Kamchatka, Fareast Russia. This is part of a special edition of the Journal Forests. The group has donated the data in to the International Tree Ring Databank.
Photo below shows some of the coauthors at the base of Tobalchik Volcano on the Kamchatka Peninsula.