Tag Archives: tree rings

Alaska, Dating Historical Structures, Ohio, Projects

Summer 2018 Research in the CoW Tree Ring Lab

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 Shabazz
Alexis 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.

Climate Change, Kamchatka, Projects, russia, Uncategorized

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.Image result for deck tree rings and kamchatka

Uncategorized

The Cooper Plots – Ecological Succession in Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve, Alaska

I recently had the pleasure to work with a team of ecologists for eight days in Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve. The point of the trip was to reoccupy and expand investigations of the Cooper Plots established over 100 years ago in the wake of the retreating ice in the West Arm. A nice rundown of this ecological succession work is presented here on Glacier Hub. The ecology team recently published on their rediscovery of the plots, which was heroic considering the immense lands, intense brush and  sometimes cryptic description of the plot locations.

The accommodations and views in the West Arm of Glacier Bay were spectacular. Logistics of the project were supported by the National Park Service, who we gratefully acknowledge.

The team of ecologists included (left to right) Drs. Allison Bidlack (Director, Alaska Coastal Rainforest Center, University of Alaska Southeast), Sarah Bisbing (University of Nevada – Reno) and Brian Buma (University of Alaska Southeast). I was along to core trees at the sites (Wooster Tree Ring Lab) and to measure the size of alders.

Sarah and Brian cordon off one of Cooper’s 1-meter plots with string so we don’t trample the vegetation. Sarah reals out a 15-meter tape with Allison on……

https://woostergeologists.scotblogs.wooster.edu

Alaska, Uncategorized

The Northern Pacific Coastal Temperate Rainforest (PCTR)

The high rainfall and high coastal ranges nourish the icefields of southern Alaska along and with the extensive carbon-rich forests and ecosystems of the Northern Pacific Coastal Temperate Rainforest (PCTR).

Chris surveys the North Pacific noting the extensive moisture source and ocean pasture that is just offshore of the terrestrial ecosystems we are studying.

Malisse sits atop a shore pine, another slow growing coastal species that is experiencing potential decline.

Kerensa sites atop an obducted ophiolite – we were 71% sure that there were pillows in the basalt.

Josh cores another Alaska Yellow cedar – we were able to sample three sites in the Juneau area. These cedars are in decline due to warming and loss of snowpack, which makes their fine roots vulnerable to frost. Our objective is to work up the tree-ring record of the sites to contribute to our understanding of the decline.

Alora takes a break from taking notes and GPS coordinates for each tree.

Ice caves fund to explore and act as a conduit to meltwater and warm air accelerating the melt.

Blue the dog – takes a break from pursuing porcupines in the muskeg.

Nick of the Ophiolite.

Kerensa wades through the deep texture of coastal carbon.

Buried forests emerge from the wasting margin of……..

https://woostergeologists.scotblogs.wooster.edu