Researchers think secrets hidden in the rings of millions of felled trees may reveal the relationship between climate and avalanche cycles
By Joe Purtell | Special to Colorado Sun
A stunning avalanche season saw thousands of slides snap mature tree trunks like twigs, wipe historic buildings off the map and radically alter Colorado’s mountain landscape.
But the big slides that splintered conifer forests and felled massive aspen groves also delivered an important new scientific resource to the Colorado Avalanche Information Center and U.S. Forest Service: downed trees.
Now a team of researchers is working through the wreckage, collecting cross sections from the fallen trees that they say will help them learn more about the relationship of climate to avalanche cycles.
