Summer researchers working in the Tree Ring Lab returned to Stebbin’s Gulch in late May to collect more chestnut oak samples. This increased replication helps us to strengthen our various hypotheses made from the interpretation of our findings.
Our views of the canopy.Team members recording measurements and extracting a core from this living chestnut oak.Kendra and Victoria looking at a giant burl on one of the sampled trees.Team members coring an old chestnut oak along the gulch reaching high into the canopy.
This information is useful in mapping out land use changes in Northeast Ohio. The team identified an abrupt increase in ring width around 1840. They attributed this rise to decreased competition from logging which coincides with the time of most significant settlement in the area.
Read more about their conclusions in the official dendroclimatological report here.
This summer, students through the AMRE program will be working in the lab doing historical dating. Kendra Devereux, Alexis Lanier, and Juwan Shabazz will be working with clients to date local barns, update chronologies, and study past climate.
Two additional students are working in the lab with data collected from Columbia Glacier in Prince William Sound, Alaska. Josh Charlton and Victoria Race will be helping out the AMRE students and also spending time with data collected from Columbia Glacier. Josh is working on constructing a model of the rapidly retreating Columbia Glacier and Victoria will be looking more closely at Blue Intensity data obtained from tree cores collected in Columbia Bay.
Work started earlier this week and the group went out in the field yesterday for the first time together. We headed up North to the Holden Arboretum to collect core samples from living Chestnut Oak trees in Stebbins Gulch.
2018 “Tree Huggers” From left to right: Victoria Race, Kendra Devereux, Alexis Lanier, Josh Charleton, and Juwan ShabazzAlexis removing tree borer after extracting core from this chestnut oak.Taking some measurements along with a few cores from this living chestnut oak.Juwan and Kendra showing off their extracted cores.Dr. Wiles checking the budding leaves of a chestnut oak.One of our freshly extracted cores.
Today we finished mounting the cores and will begin dating them after they have been sanded. These samples will be used to update the chronology from the Holden Arboretum which has not been updated in several decades. We plan on looking specifically at precipitation data extracted from these cores and then writing an official report of our findings for the researchers at Holden.
Chestnut oak cores collected from Stebbins Gulch before mounting process.Close-up of a damp core before mounting.
In the coming weeks, the group will be working on various projects including the Holden chronology, barn dating, and Columbia Glacier data. Stay tuned for updates!!
You can also follow the Geology Club instagram for more information and photos along with the departmental Facebook page.
Learning about environmental change from tree rings
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