You wrote:
At 02:45 PM 2/16/98 -0800, Arthur V. Chadwick wrote:
>Well, I would say you have done some selecting in your data. We were
>publishing on the Yellowstone forests in 1984, and those were not our
>conclusions. A lot of the work done about that time was done by Coffin,
>Mike Arct (dendrochronology of the fossil trees), and ourselves, and the
>culmination was that the Park Service did remove the signs and National
>Geographic did change their maps.
I have read both Arct's master's thesis and his dissertation. I have several
problems with the data he presented. He claimed to have found the same
signature in the rings of fossil trees at Specimen Ridge on several
different levels. For those who don't know, a signature is a unique pattern
of ring thicknesses which should represent a unique set of climatologic
stresses on the trees. If true, this would rule out the view that the trees
grew in place and were covered by volcanic ash. It would be unlikely that
the same unique pattern of climatologic events would occur in successive
forests.
Here are the issues I have with what he has done. First his signature
series is too short and he admits it.
"Although the use of short ring sequences represents a slight
departure from standard dendrochronological procedure it would be
justifiable if it permitted accuracy."~Michael J. Arct,
Dendrochronology in the Yellowstone Fossil Forests, M.A. Thesis,
Loma Linda University, 1979 p. 5
Short sequences (or short correlations) simply can't provide accuracy. We
use correlations with seismic to tell which layer is which across a fault
and the shorter the sequence the more likely an error. As we will se, the
length of his signatures are just a few rings wide.
Secondly, his signatures are due to non-standard causes:
"A signature as defined by Ferguson (1970) is 'a short,
easily identifiable sequence of large and small rings.'
Signatures from various time periods of the long southwest
chronology were often memorized by workers permitting them to
instantaneously date wood from Indian ruins. Signatures are
usually the result of extremes in annual precipitation over
several years time, but it appears that the Yellowstone signature
is a result of a pronounced sensitivity to the intra-annual
availability of water as recorded in young trees."~Michael J.
Arct, Dendrochronology in the Yellowstone Fossil Forests, M.A.
Thesis, Loma Linda University, 1979 p. 56
Instead of being signatures which occur over several rings growth, his are
within one year's growth. This is not as good a signature set.
I think most importantly for the global flood view of this deposit is that
EVEN IF THE ARCT'S SIGNATURE IS VALID,THE TREES DIDN'T DIE IN THE SAME YEAR!
Arct writes:
"Although bark was detected on five trees, the bark ring was
not always the same number of rings from the YSC Signature set.
This occurrence indicated either the trees did not die in the
same year, or several of the ring series had problems with
missing increments, or deceptive false rings."~Michael J. Arct,
Dendrochronology in the Fossil Forests of the Specimen Creek Area
Yellowstone National Park, Ph. D. Dissertation, Loma Linda
University, Dec. 1991 p. 38
between the rings that he describes. There is little correlation. Here is
the data:
***begin data****
The signature consists of a pattern of intra-annular bands which
occur over a 5 year period. The signature consists of a triplet
of intra-annual bands in the first year, an intrannual doublet
late in the third year, and an intra-annual band in the middle on
the summer of the 5th year.
Deviations from pattern:
First year triplet: The "signature" on samples YSC002, YSC010,
YSC013, YSC015 appeared to be at different times during the ring year. (p. 20)
YSC002 middle of triplet is a doublet on YSC010,013,015 it is
singlet
YSC015 outer mark of triplet is doublet. Others it is singlet
5th year singlet: YSC006 singlet is not in center of big cells
others it is in the middle of the big cells.
The outermost signature singlet on YSC013 is the inner of a
doublet but the outer ring of a doublet on on YSC010
The relative variations in ring size shows no correlation between
the samples
Ring widths on YSC002 in millimeters
YSC001
1.2,3.24,2.28,1.76,1.76
YSC002
3.2,4.3,3.2,.9,1.05
YSC006
2.84,7.3,4.76,2.23,2.46
YSC007
2.46,7.2,4.5,2.69,3.38
YSC009
4.15,5.07,4.15,3.53,2.61
YSC010
3.0,6.125,4.0,2.375,1.875
YSC013
5.54,5.54,5.69,3.53
YSC015
6.0,7.3,10.8,4.0
ratios normalized to first ring
YSC001
1.0,2.7,1.9,1.46,1.46
YSC002
1.0,1.34,1.0,.28,.32
YSC006
1.0,2.57,1.67,.785,.86
YSC007
1.0,2.92,1.82,1.09,1.37
YSC009
1.0, 1.22,1.0,.85,.62
YSC010
1.0,2.04,1.33,.8,,625
YSC013
1.0,1.0,1.054,.65
YSC015
1.0,1.21,1.8,.66
Little correlation
~Michael J. Arct, Dendrochronology in the Fossil Forests of the
Specimen Creek Area Yellowstone National Park, Ph. D.
Dissertation, Loma Linda University, Dec. 1991 p. 18, 20
***end data***
I am not convinced by Arct's data or of his conclusions but I did find the
work fascinating.
glenn
Adam, Apes, and Anthropology: Finding the Soul of Fossil Man
and
Foundation, Fall and Flood
http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/dmd.htm