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6: Dendrochronology
Dendrochronology is a process used to determine the order and timing (chronology) of events using information in tree rings
(dendro- refers to trees). These rings form in response to environmental conditions, storing information on climate and historic
occurrence of fires in an area. Essentially, you bore a hole into a living tree and extract a thin section column of the wood. This
becomes your reference specimen, as you date each annual ring, tracing back from the present date. Your reference specimen
can then be used to determine the timing of events in dead trees, potentially tracing back thousands of years.
Imagine that the sample below is from your reference specimen. The example core shows features you might see in a tree core
and how to interpret them.
Maria Morrow 1/25/2021 11.6.1 https://bio.libretexts.org/@go/page/33485 Maria Morrow 1/25/2021 11.6.2 https://bio.libretexts.org/@go/page/33485