Tree Boring...

Well today proved to be a great day of here in the arctic. I started off with a skype call to Morristown High School and had a chance to talk to several students in the freshman, sophomore, and juniors classes.

Then after a quick breakfast I headed off to the research briefing to discuss the tasks of the day...

My group spent the morning hours completing our Tree structure responsibilities using the point center quarter method out on the tundra. It was a beautiful morning in the mid-forties with blue skies and sunshine. We completed our work within a few hours and met up with the other groups to return to the research center to have lunch and pick up additional supplies.

After lunch I had a skype call with Holy Family School to discuss the research we are participating in here in the arctic. Then the research team headed out to the boreal forest and did some tree boring.

The process of tree boring is used to put a 1/2 cm hole into the trunk of the tree to extract long cylinders of the pith. These pith cylinders are then used to determine the age of the tree and evaluate climatic conditions during the years in which the tree has grown. We have found that trees here in the arctic are relatively short in comparison to the age of the tree. Trees take longer to grow here because the "growing season" is much shorter then in other areas of the world. Therefore, short trees are not necessarily young trees.