Dendrochronological dating of coal mine workings at the Joggins Fossil Cliffs, Nova Scotia, Canada
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Joggins, Nova Scotia was one of the first places in North America where coal was mined. In this paper we employ dendrochronology to date timber pit props preserved within relic coal mine workings on the closely adjacent Fundy and Dirty seams. These remains comprise a system of adits created through ‘room and pillar’ mining. Of the seventy-three samples collected, forty-eight were successfully cross-dated against a local red spruce (Picea rubens Sarg.) master chronology thereby establishing the year in which each individual sample was cut as a live tree. Results indicate cut dates of 1849-1875 which are generally consistent with written archival records of mining activity on these coal seams. Our analysis of fourteen separate adits allows us to distinguish two phases of mining. Most adits (numbers 1-9 and 11-12 with cut dates of 1849-1868) are relics of an initial operation by the General Mining Association (1865-1871), which opened a mine entered at beach level. Dendrochronological dates preceding the opening of this mine may suggest that timber stockpiled from the nearby Joggins Mine (opened 1847) was used in its construction. The remaining adits (numbers 10 and 13-14 with cut dates of 1873-1875) are probably relics of a later mine opened by the Joggins Coal Mining Company (1872-1877). Although this mine was centered ~500 m inland, its western peripheral workings passed through the earlier workings to the shore. Findings improve knowledge of the industrial archaeology of the UNESCO World Heritage Site and help refine the regional master red spruce chronology for future dendrochronological studies.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.004 | 0.004 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".