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How do they measure the tree rings on a live tree? How else do they determine the age?
by pointillistic 10y ago
How do they measure the tree rings on a live tree? How else do they determine the age?
- nn3 10y agoThey take a small core using a hollow drill. This is enough to determine the rings and the age, and won't harm the tree.
- riffraff 10y agoIANA botanist, but I think this method doesn't work on some trees (i.e. millennia-old olive trees) because old tissue is not there anymore, or because they have messed up rings, or on trees that have multiple trunks. So IIUC they integrate carbon dating, ratio between total size and growth rate and other things.
- tzaman 10y agoThe science of tree/wood dating is called dendrochronology, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dendrochronology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dendrochronology (we've had a course on faculty which I took)
- whyenot 10y agoYou use an increment borer, basically a long drill bit that has a hollow tube in the center so that you can extract a core from the tree trunk. Once you have the sample you affix it to a wooden board and sand it flat on one side so you can count the rings.