Establishment of a Tree-Ring Analysis Laboratory for Utilization in Climatologic and Sedimentologic Investigations

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Dendrochronology (the temporal analysis of growth rings in woody plants) has become an important field of research with many applications spanning geography, biology, hydrology, climatology, ecology, geomorphology, and related sciences. By analyzing the width and condition of growth rings, scientists gain valuable information about plant growth and the conditions that enhance or inhibit growth. Dendrochronological studies have permitted scientists to infer historic conditions as far back in time as the plants from which growth rings are taken have lived, which has been thousands of years under special circumstances. The grant will support establishment of a tree- ring analysis laboratory at Montana State University. This lab will contain equipment necessary for collection, preparation, and analysis of woody plant growth-rings, and it will be used as an integral component for climatic and sedimentologic research. One of the major research projects underway at the laboratory site involves the use of dendrochronology to reconstruct past temperature, precipitation, and air mass patterns at both upper and lower timberlines in a region of the northern Rocky Mountains. This work will add a substantial body of information to the minimal amount of data currently available on the paleo-environmental conditions of that region, and it will provide knowledge of recent environmental change and the consequences of that change. The second ongoing project involves determination of the frequency of debris flows generated by high-precipitation events on modern alluvial fans in the northern Rocky Mountains. Analysis of the sedimentology and frequency of debris flows caused by high- precipitation events will provide extensive information about the volume and timing of debris flows in temperate, semi-arid alluvial fans. Correlation of debris flows with local patterns of climatic variation can also help to evaluate the degree to which climate influences erosion. These results will also contribute toward refinement of models commonly applied to interpret deposits in the stratigraphic record of alluvial fans. There are few existing tree-ring analysis laboratories in the United States. The establishment of such a laboratory at Montana State University will facilitate the acquisition of dendrochronologic data in an inexpensive and timely manner not now possible. This lab will provide data for two major ongoing paleoclimatologic and sedimentologic investigations and for a number of future projects planned by scholars at that institution and elsewhere. These research projects will increase our understanding of the temporal significance of climatic fluctuations and earth surface processes.