Author Archives: mtherrell

Grenoble, France

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

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WSL

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

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Tennesee River

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

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GSA Paleoflood session

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

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Delta National Forest

Spent a couple of days this past week with some dendro folks from USM and Indiana coring trees in the bottomlands near Yazoo City , Mississippi. We were looking for more evidence of flooding on the lower Mississippi River. The weather was near perfect and we made a nice collection of overcup oak and saw

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CUBA II

I was lucky enough to return to Cuba in July to attend a conference that I was invited to by some Cuban colleagues, and this time I actually got to go into the field to try to find some tree-ring samples. We went to a region called Pinar del Rio, specifically to an area called

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Dauphin Island Audubon Sanctuary

If you have never been to Dauphin Island, Alabama, it is a very cool place. I had not been there since the late ’80s (except to fish nearby) and had forgotten how cool it is. the Audubon bird sanctuary is especially cool. During the spring and fall migrations it boasts some of the highest bird

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Ft Armstrong?

One of the cool projects that I have worked on since moving back to Alabama focuses on using tree rings to date the construction of  a group of historical log buildings. I was asked by the AL Office of Archaeological Research to attempt to determine the construction history of three log buildings that were once

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Cuba

Got to go to Cuba as part of the University of Alabama Cuba Center. As you might imagine it was a very interesting trip. I was there to to check out the potential for doing tree-ring studies on the island. Unfortunately I did not get to make any collections but I did get to visit several

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