Trees Of Red Rock Park:
Brittney Huntington, Sarah Pickett, Marissa Hurlburt
The purpose of the group's study was to find the relative age and types of the trees in the Red Rocks Park region.
The group studied maples, oak, birch, ash, hemlock, American basswood, beech, and white pine.
The first step of their project was to plot the sites that they would be using. They did this by walking down the path that travels from the Shelter Outlook to the Turnabout Overlook and then, using a GPS, they plotted 3 sites. Here is a map showing the three sites studied in the park:
They mapped out each site by picking a random center point and measuring from it an 8 meter radius to create a circle. Within these sites they measured the circumference of all the trees large enough to potentially core. After measuring the plot, they found the average circumference of each species of tree. The tree of each species with the most similar circumference to the average was identified and subsequently cored. This was done so that they could find the approximate average age of each of the different species. After coring the trees, they counted the rings to get the ages. Each ring represented a year of growth.
Circumference Of |
Average |
Average |
Average | |
Species Of Trees Observed |
Sample Tree (cm) |
Circumference (cm) |
Diameter (cm) |
Age (years) |
Hemlock (found in site 1) |
61.8 |
61.7 |
19.6 |
60 |
Ash (found in site 3) |
55 |
52.2 |
16.6 |
41 |
Maple (found in site 2) |
33 |
38.7 |
12.3 |
30 |
Oak (found in site 3) |
55 |
48.1 |
15.3 |
47 |
White Pine (found in site 3) |
197 |
199.4 |
63.5 |
90 |
Birch (found in site 3) |
54.5 |
50.2 |
16.1 |
36 |
American Basswood (found in site 3) |
81 |
71.5 |
22.8 |
43 |
The chart shows the average ages of a variety of trees found in Red Rocks park. The age trends, found in the research conducted, indicate that the white pine species is the oldest and longest standing trees in the area. From studying the white pine trees, it can be noted that they are the first types of trees to inhabit flat areas, such as fields and clearings. Due to the fact that the white pines are the oldest in the park, this indicates that the park was once cleared for pasture or farmland at one time. The youngest tree of the area was the maple. The maples appeared to be in a period of rejuvenation; there were many saplings observed in the sites. The other trees such as American basswood, ash, hemlock, birch, and oak fell somewhere in the middle of the age spectrum. Despite the fact that they observed cedar and beech trees during their research, their quantities in the sites were too insignificant to get an accurate average age reading.
