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Useful link on Mongolian dendrochronology

fionda — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 12:07:41 +0000

The Tree-Ring Lab’s project page on Mongolia page can be found here.

Tags: dendrochronology, mongolia

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Why are we going to Mongolia?

fionda — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 03:54:14 +0000

In 1998, scientists at Lamont-Doherty’s Tree Ring Laboratory and their colleagues in Mongolia found a Siberian pine tree in the Tarvagatay Mountains of Mongolia that dated back to 262 A.D. This old timer was a relict tree, dead since 496 A.D., enduring centuries of harsh weather at elevational tree line but not decomposing because it never touched the ground. It was a lucky find. They also cored living trees at the site, known as Solongotyn Davaa, or Sol Dav. The oldest of among these dated to the year 1428. In all, they harvested some 30 samples for analysis, including a good number of additional relict trees.By matching patterns in the rings, the dendrochronologists were able to connect the old timer to the other relict tree samples, and then connected those to the ones from living trees samples to ultimately get an uninterrupted temperature reconstruction from 262 to 1999.Next week, they’re going back to Sol Dav [map], to try to beat their record and to hopefully extend the chronology to 0 A.D.

Tags: dendrochronology, mongolia, travels

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Gentleman’s Farm

fionda — Sun, 14 Jan 2007 21:23:30 +0000

We spent this MLK weekend down at G’s farm in Raphine, VA, a place cupped by the Appalachians and the Blue Ridge Mountains. The landscape is stunning here, even in the middle of winter. Soft hills in the foreground and the sharper cuts the mountains make in the background, and the hills themselves have been mostly razed to make them amenable to grasses and the pasture animals that feed on them.

The road leading to the house is narrow and snakes along the base of the hills. The house itself was built on the crest of a wooded hill, so that, sitting on the porch, one has pretty views in all directions. At night, the silence is so complete that it was difficult for me to ignore my heart beating as I sat writing.

We had driven down from Hoboken with O the Russian, just in from Moscow. The road trip took most of the day, as we had to stop often to give A some time to crawl around and burn a little energy. Ohio-G had already arrived by the time we pulled in. G had put him to work cleaning the house. I like Ohio-G because he is unassuming and makes us laugh. He has a kind face, the face of a father. Very early the next morning, he left to pick up R from the the Charlottesville airport. With all of them together, the dendro-summit commencedâ€“laptops were unfolded, papers passed around, and conversations began to be punctuated by phrases such as “R-squared” and “climate-forcing” and “maximum-density latewood”. I enjoyed this peek into the lives of scientists, especially this group, who, with the (temporary) exception of N, comprises the top minds in dendrochronology.

The business of science, despite the rather incomprehensible, sterile papers that result from it, occurs with between glasses of wine and bourbon, much laughter and storytelling.

Tags: dendrochronology, virginia

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