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A Look Inside the Tree-Ring Laboratory - Cores from Ancient Forests

When
24 Apr 2025
7:00 PM - 8:00 PM
Location
Online via Zoom

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The University of Arkansas is home to the Tree-Ring Laboratory (TRL). Established in 1979, the TRL concentrates on the development of exactly-dated annual ring-width chronologies from ancient forests worldwide, a unique archive of environmental history that has many interdisciplinary applications. Dr. David Stahle, Distinguished Professor and head of the TRL, will present on dendrochronology (tree-ring dating), the research collections used, and some of the scientific applications of those materials.

The TRL maintains a fully equipped laboratory for the dating, measurement, analysis, and permanent curation of tree-ring collections. All tree-ring samples are accessioned with the University of Arkansas Museum, which is the ultimate repository for these unique collections of natural history. All numerical tree-ring data are available through the TRL and are also archived with the International Tree-Ring Data Bank maintained by the National Geophysical Data Center, 325 Broadway, Boulder, CO 80303.

David W. Stahle is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Geosciences at the University of Arkansas. He is the founder and director of the Tree-Ring Laboratory and has been extensively funded by the National Science Foundation for tree ring and climate research in the United States and abroad. Dr. Stahle is a co-founder and the current director of the Ancient Cross Timbers Consortium that promotes research, education, and conservation in the old-growth woodlands that survive across the ecotone between the eastern deciduous forest and the grasslands of the southern Great Plains. Dr. Stahle has also founded the Ancient Bald Cypress Consortium for Research, Education, and Conservation (https://cypress.uark.edu), which is designed to identify and conserve old-growth bald cypress and bottomland hardwoods and to train the next generation of conservation scientists and professionals.

Dr. Stahle was recently elected as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He received the award for his “study of past climates and for his conservation efforts for ancient forests.” With colleagues he recently published the “Mexican Drought Atlas” (http://drought.memphis.edu/MXDA/). Dr. Stahle is currently working on a National Science Foundation grant to develop tree-ring chronologies for climate reconstruction in the Amazon River basin with colleagues from Brazil, Bolivia, and Argentina.

The Natural History Society of Maryland is a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation and contributions are tax-deductible.

The mission of the Natural History Society of Maryland is to foster stewardship of Maryland’s natural heritage by conserving its natural history collections, educating its citizenry, and inspiring its youth to pursue careers in the natural sciences.