I've been out a few times in the past weeks trying to collect and cross date pine and juniper cores from the Book Cliffs. Well. I've fallen into a pattern of failure. A couple of times I couldn't get the increment borer into the tree and a couple of other times the borer became so packed with pitchy bark that it was completely plugged. Finally, when I did get a pair of cores, I couldn't cross date them: Not even with each other! So, now I have started from scratch. After a thorough increment borer cleaning, I selected a discrete stand of relatively small diameter Douglas fir trees and I am working through a complete inventory. Douglas fir is the classic species for dating and cross dating because it is very sensitive to climate signals. Plus, I have two local master chronologies from the Book Cliffs to help me get it straight. I'm just going to keep working on it until the whole hillside is cross dated. Damnit!
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