Editing 2847: Dendrochronology
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==Explanation== | ==Explanation== | ||
− | {{ | + | {{incomplete|Created by TOM BOMBADIL'S ARCH NEMESIS - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}} |
− | + | {{w|Dendrochronology}} is a scientific method of using tree rings to tell the age of a tree and learn about historical climate from features found in each ring. It's based on the fact that trees add a new ring each year, so counting the rings will tell a tree's age in years. Additionally, climate and ecology affect the size and composition of that year's ring, so scientists can use them to estimate what conditions were like each year. They can cross compare tree-ring samples from overlapping ranges, of comparable trees grown and felled at different times, to build up and confirm a useful ring history well beyond that of a single tree. | |
− | + | In some cases, tree rings contain remnants of specific events, such as forest fires, large volcano eruptions, atomic tests or droughts. Extremely disparate years can often be seen represented by a clear visual change in the usual subtle variation of ring-growth. The comic posits that trees (for one particular year only, i.e. 1635) became somehow {{w|carnivorous}}, and the ring for that year contains indications of the bones of such creatures that they ate. This was just a temporary condition, since the rings after this have no bones, but clearly was a coordinated event to have caused this to be a comparable marker. And an event that may have reoccured at other times (see below), just not again/before within the lifetime of this particular tree as illustrated. | |
− | <!-- Perhaps a ==Trivia== section? But I really wanted a nice wiki-like summary of things, anyway, falling back on Google's basic search -->A surprising number of [https://www.google.com/search?q=things+found+in+trees things can be actually found within the 'flesh' of trees], though mostly inorganic items (e.g. | + | The title text says that anomalous years like this are called 'Miyake events', after a scientist named Miyake who discovered them and was subsequently eaten by the trees, similar to the origin of {{w|Thagomizer}}. In actual fact, {{w|Miyake event}}s are periods when there are a larger than normal amount of certain isotopes that are created by cosmic rays. Evidence of these events are often found in ancient tree rings, and Fusa Miyake discovered them when investigating tree rings from years 774-775; but she wasn't then devoured by the trees – certainly not in 1635, which is a long time prior to 2012-13 when she published her discoveries. |
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+ | <!-- Perhaps a ==Trivia== section? But I really wanted a nice wiki-like summary of things, anyway, falling back on Google's basic search -->A surprising number of [https://www.google.com/search?q=things+found+in+trees things can be actually found within the 'flesh' of trees], though mostly inorganic items (e.g. metal tools, etc) that are placed and abandoned there long enough for the tree to expand its bark and woody trunk around them. Skeletal remains are more often found [https://www.google.com/search?q=human+bones+in+trees in the roots of fallen trees]. They are mostly{{Citation needed}} from bodies that will have been there before the tree started growing there, or perhaps being deliberately planted to mark/obscure the prior burial. | ||
==Transcript== | ==Transcript== | ||
− | :[A | + | {{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}} |
+ | :[A cross section of a tree in beige, with a brown bark around the cross section and black rings throughout, except one layer around the middle where white bones are shown between two exceptionally separated ring boundaries.] | ||
:[Caption below the panel:] | :[Caption below the panel:] |