Applications in Geomorphology

Applications in GeomorphologyApplications in Geomorphology

Applications in Geomorphology:Mass Movements

Effects of geomorphic processes on tree growth

Mudflow causing trees to fall and lean.

Digging out a tree buried by adjacent hillside erosion, Milledgeville, central Georgia.


Impact Scars can be dated.



Debris flow!




Effects of a snow avalanche on a white spruce.


Impact scars from ice flows/jams.



A. Through the scar itselfB. Through the buried scarC. Through the scar/nonscar interface and reaction woodD. Through the back of the tree = reference



Reaction wood:

Conifers form compression wood in response to leaning and flagging.

Deciduous trees form tension wood in response to leaning.



Hardwoods PULL

Conifers PUSH



Tree stumps buried by the White River tephra, ca. AD 820, Yukon, Canada

Applications in Geomorphology: Volcanology


Kamenskaya valley, Shiveluch volcano, Kamchatka. Carbonized wood buried in situ in the pyroclastic deposits



Suppressed growth beginning in 1788


Effects of global-scale cooling caused by a volcanic eruption in AD 536, as seen in a Siberian pine from Mongolia. Which is the frost ring?


Effects of global-scale cooling caused by a volcanic eruption ca. 1627 BC, as seen in a bristlecone pine. Which is the frost ring?




Effects of global-scale cooling caused by the eruption of Huaynapatina in Peru in 1600, as seen in whitebark pine from Montana. Which is the frost ring?

Applications in Geomorphology: Seismology

Three lines of evidence:

(1) Physical damage



2. Mortality due to submergence


In this pine sample from Arkansas, the earthquake of 1811-1812 can be seen as an increase in ring widths and change in latewood appearance.


3. Change in hydrologic regime


In this baldcypress sample from Arkansas, the earthquake of 1811-1812 can be seen as a major growth reduction due to the changing hydrologic regime.


Notice! Growth changes not seen so much in the master chronology, right? (Why not?) But when you begin to look at individual trees to the right…

Lituya Bay tsunami evidence from tree rings. This section was cut in 1953 from a spruce tree growing in Lituya Bay, Alaska, USA, just above an area damaged by a giant wave that hit the area in 1853-1854.

Applications in Geomorphology: Tsunami

Applications in Geomorphology: Tsunami

Jacoby et al. 1997. Tree-ring evidence for an A.D. 1700 Cascadia earthquake in Washington and northern Oregon. Geology 25(11): 999-1002.

Applications in Geomorphology: Hydrology

Effects of a 1945 flood on growth of a ponderosa pine, Pine Canyon, Chiricahua Mountains, Arizona.




Changes in hydrologic properties of an area.

Bank erosion causing conifer trees to lean along the Sheepscot River in Maine.


1. Reference data set 6. Establishment dates on most recent terrace

2. Buried wood inside former floodplain (C14) 7. Leaning trees give establishment dates

3. Intact stems on older floodplain and dates of reaction wood

4. Intact stems on more recent floodplain

5. Establishment dates on recent terrace


Flood rings

Applications in Geomorphology: Glaciology

A. Radiocarbon dates


B. Tree-ring datesof glacial advances (death dates of trees)


Tree-ring dated moraines


Applications in Geomorphology

Documents

submergence applications

mass movementsimpact

hydrologic regime applications

mass movementsapplications

physical damage applications

mass movementstree stumps

spruce tree

frost ring