A 1000 years of bi-decadal oscillation recorded by a bur oak (Quercus macrocarpa) chronology

A 1000 years of bi-decadal oscillation recorded by a bur oak (Quercus macrocarpa) chronology

bur oak & soy beans

10002000

Cook et al. 1997 Stambaugh et al. 2011

I like the acoustic illustration for several reasons. We developed this chronology by collecting old oak buried in river mud and using dendrochronology to produce a 1000 year climate reconstruction.

The data has 'repetitive expectations' something we can expect in both music and certain patterns of tree growth and climate.

For some reason the sound of a 1000 years of drought blowing across the midwest as recorded by bur oak trees is emotionally inspiring. Something like a symphony where sound just touches our passion.

1Title: Bi-decadal Drought Rhythm IIII; Species: bur oak (Quercus macrocarpa); Period: 992 to 2010 AD;Temporal Axis: 1092 years in 57 seconds, ratio: 19 yrs-1 s-1; Acoustic Axis: increased growth (mm) = increased pitch (Hz) and duration (s); Location: Northern Missouri floodplains, US; Time series type: spline filtered ring-width index; Data: Stambaugh et al. 2011.

These chron has been standardized, negative exponentiized, spline curved and ARStANed for your listening pleasure2