Jewel Cave East - USJCE001 Additional Site Information Peter M. Brown Dating Method: Crossdated Sample Storage Location: Rocky Mountain Tree-Ring Research, Inc. Ft. Collins, CO References: Brown, P.M. and C.H. Sieg. 1996. Fire History in Interior Ponderosa Pine Communities of the Black Hills, South Dakota, USA. Journal of Wildland Fire 6(3):97-105. Brown, P.M. 2003. Fire, climate, and forest structure in Black Hills ponderosa pine forests. PhD. Dissertation, Colorado State University, Ft. Collins, Colorado. Abstract: (Brown and Sieg, 1996) Chronologies of fire events were reconstructed from crossdated fire-scarred ponderosa pine trees for four sites in the south-central Black Hills. Compared to other ponderosa pine forests in the southwest US or southern Rocky Mountains, these communities burned less frequently. For all sites combined, and using all fires detected, the mean fire interval (MFI), or number of years between fire years, was 16 years (+/- 14 SD) for the period 1388 to 1900. When a yearly minimum percentage of trees recording scars of >/= 25% is imposed, the MFI was 20 years (+/- 14 SD). The length of the most recent fire-free period (104 years, from 1890 to 1994) exceeds the longest intervals in the pre-settlement era (before ca. 1874), and is likely the result of human-induced land use changes. Based on fire scar position within annual rings, most past fires occurred late in the growing season or after growth had ceased for the year. These findings have important implications for management of ponderosa pine forests in the Black Hills and for understanding the role of fire in pre-settlement ecosystem function. Comments: The "." and "|" symbols were not used in the standard manner as described in the FHX2 users manual, in that they do not indicate whether or not a year is considered a "recorder" year. Rather, the "|" symbol is used to indicate that a dated ring was present, while the "." symbol is used to indicate that no dated ring was present (typically before and after the age range of the tree as well as between an estimated pith date and the earliest ring that was present). A JPEG scan of the topographic map used to hand mark the tree locations is available at: ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/firehistory/firescar/northamerica/supplemental/jewelcav.jpg Fire History Graphs: Fire History Graphs illustrate specific years when fires occurred and how many trees were scarred. They are available in both PDF and PNG formats. The graphs consist of 2 parts, both of which show the X axis (time line) at the bottom with the earliest year of information on the left and the latest on the right. The Fire Index Plot is the topmost plot, and shows two variables: sample depth (the number of recording trees in each year) as a blue line along the left Y axis, compared with the percent trees scarred shown as gray bars along the right Y axis. Below, the Fire Chronology Plot consists of horizontal lines representing injuries by year on individual sampled trees. Symbols are overlain that denote the years containing the dendrochronologically-dated fire scars or injuries. The sample ID of each tree is displayed to the right of each line. The Composite Axis below represents the composite information from all individual series. The symbols used to represent the fire scars or injuries, and the filters used to determine the composite information, are shown in the legend. These graphs were created using the Fire History Analysis and Exploration System (FHAES). See http://frames.nbii.gov/fhaes/ for more information.