r to the
Union troops during the Civil War. Working in the mines, building the roads
and cutting the wood were a conglomerate of immigrants. Included among these
workers were large numbers of Chinese laborers.
"The archaeologists don't want to disturb the archaeological sites
or destroy the tree stumps which can give them information about dates,"
says Taylor. "I'm looking at the tree stumps to try to reconstruct
the forest structure before lumbering, the history of fire in the area and
the age of the trees before they were cut."
Because many trees have rings that grow one per year or one per season,
tree ring dating -- dendrochronology -- is often used to determine the age
of trees and their dates of cutting. Climate information, the history of
droughts and wet periods, can also sometimes be garnered from the rings.
Archaeologists use tree rings to identify the age of archaeological sites
from the cutting dates of construction materials.
Taylor is using tree rings to date the episodes of fire in the forest. On
some trees, fire-damaged rings can be identified and then dated. A compilation
of burning dates and locations can reveal the fire pattern in the area,
including both frequency and extent. The severity of the fires can be estimated
from the burn scars.
A survey of the ages of trees at specific fires can give a cross sectional
view of the age composition of the forest.
"We have had to develop a tree ring chronology specific for this area,
from living trees," says Taylor. "With a chronology that goes
back far enough, we can determine the dates of the logs in cabins and the
tree stumps."
An understanding of what the forest was like before European settlement,
during logging and how it grew back afterwards, could help environmentalists
and resource managers plan the future of these forests which surround some
of the last pristine lakes in the U.S.
'"/>
Contact: A'ndrea Elyse Messer
aem1@psuvm.psu.edu
814-865-9481
Penn State
12-Aug-1996
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