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Radiocarbon Analysis Confirms the Annual Nature of Sagebrush Growth Rings

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2016

Franco Biondi ,
Scotty D J Strachan ,
Scott Mensing  and
Gianluca Piovesan
Franco Biondi*
Affiliation:
DendroLab, Department of Geography, and Graduate Program of Hydrologic Sciences, University of Nevada, Reno, Nevada 89557, USA
Scotty D J Strachan
Affiliation:
DendroLab, Department of Geography, University of Nevada, Reno, Nevada 89557, USA
Scott Mensing
Affiliation:
Department of Geography, University of Nevada, Reno, Nevada 89557, USA
Gianluca Piovesan
Affiliation:
Department of Environment and Forests, University of Tuscia, Viterbo, Italy
*
Corresponding author. Email: fbiondi@unr.edu
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Abstract

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In the Great Basin of North America, big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata Nutt.) growth rings can be used to reconstruct environmental changes with annual resolution in areas where there is otherwise little such information available. We tested the annual nature of big sagebrush wood layers using accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) radiocarbon dating. Four cross-sections from 3 sagebrush plants were collected near Ely, Nevada, USA, and analyzed using dendrochronological methods. Ten 14C measurements were then used to trace the location of the 1963–64 “bomb spike.” Although the number of rings on each section did not exceed 60, crossdating was possible within a section and between sections. Years assigned to individual wood layers by means of crossdating aligned with their expected 14C values, matching the location of the 14C peak. This result confirmed the annual nature of growth rings formed by big sagebrush, and will facilitate the development of spatially explicit, well-replicated proxy records of environmental change, such as wildfire regimes, in Great Basin valleys.

Type
Articles
Information
Radiocarbon , Volume 49 , Issue 3 , 2007 , pp. 1231 - 1240
Copyright
Copyright © 2007 by the Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona 

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