Communities, government and local groups often want to know the age of culturally, historically or ecologically significant trees. In northern Australia, these trees are often not amenable to traditional tree-ring dating methods. However, the advent of relatively low-cost and low-sample size radiocarbon dating and calibration methods means that these trees can now be aged with some certainty at a moderate cost.

Associate Professor Nathan B. English from Central Queensland University will demonstrate how low-impact sampling and collaboration can be used to date these important and significant trees and inform decisions around their conservation and management.

Meet the speaker

Associate Professor Nathan B. English

The consistent theme of Nathan's research is the study of how environmental variables affect Earth-surface processes (climate, transport, etc.) and natural materials (biota, earth and water) over multiple scales of time and distance.

Currently, he is using dendrochronology, stable isotopes, and ancient kauri pines of North Queensland to reconstruct past rainfall and model the response of drought and floods to El Niño Southern Oscillation and other mulitdecadal climate phenomena (Indian Ocean Dipole, Pacific Decadal Oscillation). In the past, his colleagues and himself, investigated the link between ecophysiology, climate, and isotopic variation in the spines of columnar cactuses, including the tropical species Trichocereus pasacana in Bolivia. This research develops and explains a novel climate proxy that yields high–resolution information about plant ecology, water relations and past climate that will be useful in tropical and subtropical regions with few annually resolved and centuries-long terrestrial climate proxies.

His current work on climate and trees of North Queensland is covered here →

He is also the manager of the Tropical Dendrochronology Laboratory, administrator of the Australasian Dendrochronology Page on Facebook.

This event will run off Australian Eastern Standard Time (AEST) and will be recorded for those that cannot make the live session.

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