Little Aspen Butte Ponderosa Pine Tree-Ring Chronology from 455 BC

486 annual tree-ring width measurements from Ponderosa Pine trees at Little Aspen Butte, Oregon, provide a climate proxy record. The chronology covers 455 BC to AD 31, a span of 486 years, as archived by NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information. Data collection and publication were led by researcher Graumlich, with the record last updated in 1981.

Use Cases

• Calibrating tree-ring width variations against modern climate data to reconstruct past temperature or precipitation for Oregon.
• Analyzing the chronology for low-frequency climate trends, such as multi-decadal droughts, during the 486-year period.
• Cross-dating this Ponderosa Pine chronology with other regional tree-ring records to validate climate signals.
• Investigating growth anomalies in specific ring-width years as potential indicators of volcanic eruptions or extreme climatic events.

Strengths

• Covers a substantial 486-year temporal range from 455 BC to AD 31.
• Provides a site-specific, annually-resolved proxy record for a defined geographic location in Oregon.

Limitations

• The dataset is temporally stale, with no updates since its 1981 publication.
• Lacks associated raw measurement data or metadata details like sample depth (number of trees) per year.
• Geographic coverage is limited to a single site, Little Aspen Butte, which may not represent broader regional climate.

Provenance

Source

NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) World Data Service for Paleoclimatology.

Collection Method

Tree-ring analysis (dendrochronology) of Ponderosa Pine (Pinus ponderosa, PIPO) samples.

Time Range

455 BC to AD 31 (calendar years before present).

Freshness

1981-01-01

Geography

Little Aspen Butte, Oregon, United States of America.