Abstract
Dating of many types of young (<500 year), dynamic, geomorphic landforms (e.g. mass-movement erosional tracks and deposits, alluvial terraces, flood plains, etc.) for purposes of hazard assessment and mitigation commonly requires greater dating precision than is available through radiocarbon dating or other methods. Ages of trees growing on landform surfaces have been used in a number of studies to estimate the time of landform creation or surface clearing, but the time lag between surface formation or disturbance and the reestablishment of trees can vary from 1 to more than 200 years (Desloges and Ryder 1990; Frenzen et al. 1988, 2005; Larsen and Bliss 1998; McCarthy and Luckman 1993; Sigafoos and Hendricks 1969; Winter et al. 2002). Appropriate lag times for selected tree species and for particular climatic and altitudinal ranges must be determined for the method to be useful.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Desloges JR, Ryder JM (1990) Neoglacial history of the Coast Mountains near Bella Coola, British Columbia. Can J Earth Sci 27(2):281–290
Fowells HA (1965) Silvics of forest trees of the United States, Agricultural handbook No. 271. US Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Washington, DC
Frenzen PM, Krasny ME, Rigney LP (1988) Thirty-three years of plant succession on the Kautz Creek mudflow, Mount Rainier National Park, Washington. Can J Bot 66(1):130–137
Frenzen PM, Hadley KS, Major JJ, Weber MH, Franklin JF, Hardison JH, Stanton SM (2005) Geomorphic change and vegetation development on the Muddy River mudflow deposit. In: Dale VH, Swanson FJ, Crisafulli CM (eds) Ecological responses to the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens. Springer, Berlin, pp 75–91
Hupp CR, Osterkamp WR, Thornton JL (1987) Dendrogeomorphic evidence and dating of recent debris flows on Mount Shasta, northern California, US Geological Survey professional paper 1396B. US Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, pp 1–39
Larsen DR, Bliss LC (1998) An analysis of structure of tree seedling populations on a lahar. Landsc Ecol 13(5):307–322
McCarthy DP, Luckman BH (1993) Estimating ecesis for tree-ring dating of moraines—a comparative study from the Canadian Cordillera. Arct Alp Res 25(1):63–68
Phipps RL (1985) Collecting, preparing, crossdating, and measuring tree increment cores, US Geological Survey water-resources investigations report 85–4148. US Department of Interior, Geological Survey, Reston
Pierson TC (2007) Dating young geomorphic surfaces using age of colonizing Douglas fir in southwestern Washington and northwestern Oregon, USA. Earth Surf Process Landf 32(6):811–831
Savage M, Brown PM, Feddema J (1996) The role of climate in a pine forest regeneration pulse in the southwestern United States. Ecoscience 3(3):310–318
Sigafoos RS, Hendricks EL (1969) The time interval between stabilization of alpine glacial deposits and establishment of tree seedlings, US Geological Survey professional paper 650B. US Geological Survey, Boulder, pp B89–B93
Stokes MA, Smiley TL (1968) An introduction to tree-ring dating. University of Chicago Press, Chicago
Winter LE, Brubaker LB, Franklin JF, Miller EA, DeWitt DQ (2002) Initiation of an old-growth Douglas-fir stand in the Pacific Northwest: a reconstruction from tree-ring records. Can J For Res 32(6):1039–1056
Yamaguchi DK (1989) Using dendrochronology to date late Holocene geologic events. In: Forman SL (ed) Dating methods applicable to Quaternary geologic studies in the western United States, Utah Geologic and Mineral Survey, Miscellaneous Publications 89–7. Utah Geologic and Mineral Survey, Salt Lake City, pp 10–24
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2013 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Pierson, T.C. (2013). Using Age of Colonizing Douglas-Fir for the Dating of Young Geomorphic Surfaces—A Case Study. In: Schneuwly-Bollschweiler, M., Stoffel, M., Rudolf-Miklau, F. (eds) Dating Torrential Processes on Fans and Cones. Advances in Global Change Research, vol 47. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4336-6_13
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4336-6_13
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-007-4335-9
Online ISBN: 978-94-007-4336-6
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0)