History of TreeRing Research

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History of Tree-Ring Research
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Dendrochronology

• dendron ( tree)
• chronos ( time)
• - logy ( the study of)

Dendrochronology The science that uses tree
rings dated to their exact year of formation to
analyze temporal and spatial patterns of
processes in the physical and cultural sciences. 
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Scientists That Have Explored Tree Rings

• Theophrastus in Greece 322 B.C.
• Leonardo Da Vinci in Italy ca. 1500
• Duhamel and Buffon in France 1737
• A.C. Twinning in Connecticut in 1827
• Theodor Hartig in Germany in 1837
• Charles Babbage in England in 1838
• Jacob Kuechler in Texas in 1859
• Robert Hartig in Germany in 1867
• A.E. Douglass in Arizona in 1904

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• Theophrastus of Erusus
• Greece 322 B.C.
• Pupil of Aristotle
• Wrote History of Plants in 9 volumes
• Last volume titled Causes of Plants
• Mentioned growth rings in two fir species
• Recognized the annual nature of tree rings

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Leonardo da Vinci
Rings in the branches of sawed trees show the
number of years and, according to their
thickness, the years which were more or less dry.
Thus, they reflect the individual worlds to which
they belong, in the north of Italy they are
much thicker than in the south.
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Duhamel du Monceau, H.-L., and Comte de Buffon,
G.L.L. 1737. Recherches de la cause de
l'excentricité des couches ligneuses qu'on
appercoit quand on coupe horizontalement le tronc
d'un arbre de l'inégalité d'épaisseur, and du
different nombre de ces couches, tant dans le
bois formé que dans l'aubier. Investigations
into the cause of the eccentricity of the woody
layers that one observes when the trunk of a tree
is horizontally cut inequality in thickness, of
different numbers of these layers, as well as the
wood formed in the sapwood. In P. Mortier, ed.,
Histoires de l'Académie Royale des Sciences Année
1737, avec les Mémoires de Mathématique de
Physique, pour la meme Année. Amsterdam 171-191.
Henri-Louis Duhamel du Monceau
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Twining, A.C. 1833. On the growth of timber.
American Journal of Science and Arts 24
391-393. Every tree had preserved a record of
the seasons, for the whole period of its
growthmight not this natural, unerring,
graphical record of seasons past, deserve as
careful preservation as a curious mineral or a
new form of crystals? Such a comparison might
prove the means of carrying back our knowledge of
the seasons, through a period coeval with the age
of te oldest forest trees.
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Charles Babbage (1791 1871)
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Theodor Hartig
Fraget die Bäume! Besser als alle Bücherweisheit
werden sie euch sagen, wie sie behandelt sein
wollen. -- 1853, in Uber die Entwicklung des
Jahresringes der Holzpflanzen Botanist
interested in forest growth silviculture
1805-1880 Professor of Forestry Sciences at the
University of Berlin
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Jacob Kuechler in Texas in 1859 Campbell, T.N.
1949. The pioneer tree-ring work of Jacob
Kuechler. Tree-Ring Bulletin 15(3)
16-20. Kuechler was a forester from Germany,
settled in Texas in 1847. Our records are of
such recent date that we must turn to the annals
of Nature, particularly of the plant world. A
tree contains the record of its life history, and
this history is most closely interwoven with the
annual rainfall. Used post oak trees (Quercus
stellata) that 125 years later proved to be
critical for understanding past climate in the
south-central U.S. Noted repeating patterns of
dry years and wet years in the ring record.
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John Muir (18381914)
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Andrew E. Douglass (1867-1962) is regarded as the
father of Dendrochronology. Douglass was
a student of the famous astronomer Percival
Lowell who, in 1894, sent Douglass across the
country to build an observatory in Arizona.
While acquiring the timber for the observatorys
construction, Douglass noticed similar
ring-width patterns in the stumps of the
trees cut for construction. By the early 1920s,
Douglass had pioneered the science of
dendro- chronology, most importantly, the
principle of crossdating which he applied to a
variety of different disciplines from
climatology to astronomy to archaeology.
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Douglass, A.E. 1929. The secret of the southwest
solved by talkative tree rings. National
Geographic Magazine 56(6)736-770.
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Douglass in Storeroom
Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research Tucson, Arizona
1940
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Douglass at Steward
Douglass at Steward Observatory, University of
Arizona, 1941
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Andrew Ellicott Douglass (18671962)
John Muir (1838 1914)
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Douglass in Office
Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research Tucson, Arizona
1941
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Early Dendrochronologists
Fred Scantling, Sid Stallings, A.E. Douglass,
Edmund Schulman, James Louis Giddings 1946
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Edmund Schulman, Sid Stallings, A.E. Douglass,
Fred Scantling, James Louis Giddings 1946
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Florence Hawley
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Bruno Huber (1899 1969)
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Edmund Schulman (1908 1958)
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Edmund Schulman (1908 1958)
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Harold C. Fritts (1928 )
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Fritz H. Schweingruber (1935 )
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Thomas W. Swetnam 1955
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Malcolm K. Hughes
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Edward R. Cook
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David W. Stahle
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Subfields of Dendrochronology

• Dendroarchaeology Dating of Archaeological
  dwellings.
• Dendroclimatology Developing a record of past
  climate.
• Dendrogeomorphology Dating land movements such
  as landslides in the past.
• Dendrohydrology Creating a record of past water
  availability and flooding.
• Dendroglaciology Dating past movements of
  glaciers.
• Dendrovolcanology Dating the past eruptions of
  volcanoes.
• Dendrochemistry Using tree rings as a monitor
  of the chemical makeup of the soil.
• Dendroecology Recording ecological processes
  such as tree-line movement, insect outbreaks, or
  movement of invasive tree species.
• Dendropyrochronology Dating the past occurrence
  of forest fires.
• Dendroentomology The use of tree rings to
  reconstruct past population levels of insects.
• Dendromastecology The use of tree rings to
  reconstruct fruiting events in trees.

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Individual tree species that can live to more
than 1,000 years,that we know of?

• Intermountain bristlecone pine (Pinus longaeva
  D.K. Bailey), 4,844 years old
• Alerce (Fitzroya cuppressoides (Molina)
  Johnston), 3,620 years old
• Giant sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum (Lindl.)
  Buchholz), 3,300 years old
• Rocky Mountain bristlecone pine (Pinus aristata
  Engelm.), 2,425 years old
• Coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens (D.Don)
  Endl.), 2,200 years old
• Foxtail pine (Pinus balfouriana Grev. Balf.),
  2,110 years old
• Rocky Mountain juniper (Juniperus scopulorum
  Sarg.), 1,889 years old
• Limber pine (Pinus flexilis James), 1,670 years
  old
• Alaska yellow-cedar (Chamaecyparis nootkatensis
  (D.Don) Spach), 1,636
• Baldcypress (Taxodium distichum (L.) Rich.),
  1,622 years old
• Western juniper (Juniperus occidentalis Hook.),
  1,288 years old
• Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii (Mirb.)
  Franco), 1,275 years old
• Huon pine (Lagarostrobus franklinii C.J. Quinn),
  1,089 years old
• Northern white-cedar (Thuja occidentalis L.),
  1,032 years old
• Himalayan Hemlock (Tsuga dumosa) 1,011 years old

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International Tree Ring Data Bank (ITRDB)
http//www.ngdc.noaa.gov/paleo/treering.html
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ITRDB Web site
ITRDB International Tree-Ring Data Bank
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The Ultimate Tree-Ring Web Pages http//web.utk.e
du/grissino/