Went up to sample on Redstone Arsenal for our Tennessee River flood project and found some fantastic old Red Cedar (Juniperous virginiana). This sample was 0ver 330 years old when it died (note all the sapwood is gone). Who knows how long it has been sitting here perched on these rocks. perhaps centuries. Once we hopefully get it dated we’ll know. We also sampled quite a few post oaks (Quercus stellata) and chinquapin oaks (Q. muehlenbergii). The post oaks are […]
Went to sample Overcup Oak (Quercus lyrata) on Cat Island in Louisiana with Dr. Margaret Devall. This site is right next to the Mississippi and there is no levee here, so the trees really get impacted by frequent and high-magnitude flooding.
One of the best trips I took this summer was to Columbia Missouri to see my good buddy Mike Stambaugh and take a sample from the huge Bur Oak cross section they have in their lab. This tree was the National Champion Bur Oak until it died in the early 1950s. It had been growing in Big Oak Tree State Park in the Bootheel of MO. This site is one of the only virgin bottomland hardwood forests left in MO, […]
After visiting WSL I traveled to Grenoble France to attend the PAGES-Cross-Community Workshop on past flood variability. This was an amazing meeting of scientists mostly from Europe, but some others studying floods mostly from a historical or paleo perspective. (http://www.pages-igbp.org/ini/wg/peat-carbon/160-initiatives/working-group/floods/1277-floods). I learned a great deal at this meeting and very much enjoyed Grenoble. The food was fantastic the views were amazing and the people extremely warm-hearted.
Got a chance to visit the world famous (at least among dendrochronologists) WSL (Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research) labs in Birmensdorf, (near Zurich) Switzerland. My former MS student Matt Meko is training at the lab on x-ray densitometry techniques.The WSL facility is world class in every respect and the dendroscience they are performing there is extremely impressive. This was my first time in Switzerland and I have to say I am pretty impressed with the lifestyle and […]
Went up to Muscle Shoals/Florence Alabama the other day to look for tree-ring evidence of flooding. I have never been to this area before and was really impressed with how beautiful it is. There are huge limestone cliffs on the south side of the river and gorgeous baldcypress swamps on the north. The photo shows a section of Cypress Creek, which is quite stunning by itself
Geological Society of America (GSA) Annual Meeting 2016. Denver, Colorado, USA September 25-28. http://community.geosociety.org/gsa2016/home Abstracts open April 1, close July 31st. (T59). Paleofloods and Related Fluvial Processes during the Late Quaternary: Reconstructions and Causes. This session aims to bring together scientists with interests in developing and applying a broad array of reconstruction techniques for characterizing the magnitude, frequency, geographic distribution and causes of paleofloods. Convenors: Lisa Davis and Matthew Therrell, University of Alabama, Samuel Munoz, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Sponsors: American […]