Green Ash 2001 Flood Event at Mississippi River Floodplain

Abstract

With the help of Professor Daniel Griffin, throughout the semester, I have been working with Green Ash tree samples. My goal has been to examine and identify whether or not a flood in the Mississippi River floodplain in southern Minnesota in early 2001 shows a significant difference in the early wood vessel size leading to significantly smaller annual rings in that year. To get the early wood vessel size, for each sample, the images were retrieved using a high powered robotic GigaMacro camera where many images were taken and then stitched together. Once a final composite image had been created, it was uploaded to DendroElevator where it was measured for the five years preceding the 2001 flood event and the five years following the event using a tool in DendroElevator which is a database of tree core samples to gain a larger picture of how the flood affected the area.