Hard Core!

As the title of this blog might indicate, these last few weeks have been quite productive on the dendrochronological front (ok, I may have made up that last word). After long last, I have finally cored my last tree (for this REU project at least), and this means getting down to some sanding and dating. Below are some of my favorite pictures of these last two weeks collecting along the Elwha and also up on Hurricane Ridge.

From some the the initial cores out of the Elwha, i would predict that the average age of trees is around 50-70 years. Compare this to what we took of the ridge (average age of around 100 years) we can see some of the affects of harsh climate and short growth periods compared to areas in the Elwha Riparian that, among other benefits, also historically made use of salmonid nutrients on an annual basis.

As a final note on this blog, the last core at hurricane was quite a doozy, and took about 30 min. to pull out of one mean little Mountain Hemlock. the title, therefore, is dedicated to you tree, and to you core, the last of the REU bunch!