Physical and Environmental Geography Commons^™

Fire And Forest History From Soil Charcoal In Yellow Pine And Mixed Hardwood-Pine Forests In The Southern Appalachian Mountains, U.S.A., Christopher Aaron Underwood

Doctoral Dissertations

The Holocene history and ecological role of fire in forested ecosystems in the southern Appalachians is incompletely known. Determining how often and when fire has affected forest communities requires us to think about fire over time scales that extend beyond those of written fire records. This research is the first to specifically address the spatio-temporal patterns of forest fires in southern Appalachian xeric forests using radiocarbon dating of taxonomically identified soil charcoal as the primary proxy. Forty-eight soil cores were recovered in eight sites established for a companion study of dendrochronological evidence of fire history. The eight sites were located …