Comparison of the Sedimentary Record of Fire with the Tree-Ring Record Within and Near Giant Sequoia Groves, Sierra Nevada, California

The larger Sierra Nevada Global Change Research Program (SNGCRP) seeks to
understand past, present, and possible future changes in Sierran forest
structure, composition, and dynamics resulting from changing management
practices and anticipated global climate change. Within the larger program,
this project ("Comparison of the sedimentary record of fire with the tree-ring
record within and near giant sequoia groves, Sierra Nevada, California") will
use high precision carbon dating of charcoal and pollen in sediment cores in
order to (1) develop a 10,000-year record of fire history in the southern and
central Sierra Nevada, calibrated against multi-millennial, annual-resolution
fire histories from tree rings at the same sites, and (2) develop detailed
descriptions of changes in forest composition over the last few millennia, to
be compared with climate and fire histories developed by other SNGCRP projects.
This work will provide data for calibration and testing of fire spread and
forest dynamics models currently being developed by other global change
research projects, and will provide baseline data on past disturbance regimes,
their variability, and consequent forest response. These objectives will be
achieved by analyzing four sediment cores. The cores have already been
collected from meadows adjacent to sites with multi-millennial,
annual-resolution fire histories developed from giant sequoia tree rings: Giant
Forest (Sequoia National Park), Mountain Home Grove (Mountain Home State
Forest), Mariposa Grove (Yosemite National Park), and Big Stump Grove (Kings
Canyon National Park).