Rocky Mountain Tree-Ring Research is a nonprofit research organization founded in 1997 by Peter M. Brown. We provide expertise in tree-ring collection, dating, and analysis to answer a variety of basic and applied questions in fire and forest history, climatology, and ecosystem ecology, restoration, and management.
The basics page contains some practical information on sampling, sample preparation, and how to keep your increment borers clean and sharp.
RMTRR is also the home of OLDLIST, a database of known maximum ages that individual trees of different species have attained at the time of sampling from around the world. Also have a look at the Eastern OLDLIST, focused on old trees in the eastern US and maintained by Dr. Neil Pederson of Harvard Forest and colleagues at the Virginia Tech Tree Program.
NEW! I have several new photographs and descriptions of various trips, taken for both work and play, posted in February 2024. Trip reports highlight some wonderful places to raft, camp, or do some tree-ring research. Please check these out! New trips include three new Grand Canyon raft trips - including the first recorded trip of a tule reed boat down the Grand Canyon - and some sampling at Zion National Park, amongst others.
Unfortunately as of February 2024 we no longer are selling increment core mounts. However, this service has been taken over by Dendrosupply; check them out for your core mount needs. Also I posted some photographs on our process that perhaps you can modify for your needs (e.g., you do not need a custom router bit, I offer an alternative in the photo captions).
(Larger version of header photo; Powell Plateau ponderosa pine forest, North Rim of the Grand Canyon)
