David Barclay

SUNY Cortland

  • David Barclay
  • Teaching
  • Research
  • Publications

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Research

I have ongoing interests in a range of research topics in Alaska and New York.  Please see Publications for finished papers/reports and contact me for reprints or further information.


Glacier and tree-ring studies in Alaska:

  • Reconstructing valley glacier histories as a proxy record of late Holocene climate change
  • Building long tree-ring chronologies for dating earthquakes and glacier fluctuations
  • Using paleorecords to understand tidewater glacier behavior over decades to millennia
Person coring a dead tree
Jim Milligan ’01 coring a subfossil tree at Nellie Juan Glacier in Alaska

Landscape studies in New York:

  • Evidence (or lack thereof) for local valley glaciers in the Adirondack Mountains during the late glacial period
  • Deglacial history of the Finger Lakes region based on lidar-derived geospatial imagery
  • Migrating river channels and groundwater-induced flooding in central New York
Five people on a boat with a sediment core
Collecting a sediment core at the Salmon River with Makiah Poli ’25, Jim McKenna (USGS), and Tiernan Smith and Spencer Alascio (SRMT). Image courtesy of Justin Dalaba.

Old trees and forests in New York:

  • Dating historical buildings in Willsboro and elsewhere in the Adirondacks
  • Extending living tree chronologies back in time for paleohydrologic reconstructions
  • Locating old forest remnants for their scientific and aesthetic values
Person coring a tree
Kiersten Duroe ’15 coring a hemlock at Hoxie Gorge

Geospatial imagery for teaching and recreation:

  • Smartphone Digital Elevation Model (DEM) and hillshade images with real-time location for teaching geomorphology and landforms in the field
  • Smartphone trail maps for Lime Hollow Nature Center with real-time location on lidar-derived geospatial imagery
Trail map for Lime Hollow Nature Center on digital elevation background

Data sets:

Completed tree-ring chronologies are publicly available at the International Tree-Ring Data Bank at NOAA [link]

Trail maps for Lime Hollow are publicly available in the map store of the free Avenza Maps app [link]