An interesting dating technique

[dlamberth]

I found this new to me dating technique using solar Flares and tree rings an interesting way to date events.

Yes, Vikings Really Did Live in the Americas 1,000 Years Ago

 

[Occams Barber]

I found this new to me dating technique using solar Flares and tree rings an interesting way to date events.

Yes, Vikings Really Did Live in the Americas 1,000 Years Ago

Thanks @dlamberth - really interesting

Using tree rings ('dendrochronology) to date archaeological material has been around for a long time.

What makes this particular dating unique is the combination of tree rings and a solar flare in a known year. The effects of the flare on the tree's rings allowed them to identify the affected ring and count from this ring to the outer tree ring to find the year the tree was cut down.

This stuff is brilliant.

OB

 

[Halbhh]

Thanks @dlamberth - really interesting

Using tree rings ('dendrochronology) to date archaeological material has been around for a long time.

What makes this particular dating unique is the combination of tree rings and a solar flare in a known year. The effects of the flare on the tree's rings allowed them to identify the affected ring and count from this ring to the outer tree ring to find the year the tree was cut down.

This stuff is brilliant.

OB

Yes, there are very many clever tricks used to accurately date stuff. Another fun one is how volcanic events and major impact events (like asteroid or comet hitting the Earth) will both lay down a deposit in the strata of the soil, but also affect tree rings when there is a large aerosol outcome in the atmosphere that significantly reduces sunlight for a period. The tree rings pin can help down the precise date of the event. etc.

e.g.: Date of ancient volcanic eruption finally pinpointed using fossilised tree rings

 

[Halbhh]

I found this new to me dating technique using solar Flares and tree rings an interesting way to date events.

Yes, Vikings Really Did Live in the Americas 1,000 Years Ago

Another interesting aspect is how we can also use fossilized tree rings to help date events, from stuff a mere 1000 years back -- to considerably further back.

Date of ancient volcanic eruption finally pinpointed using fossilised tree rings

The Changbaishan eruption, one of the most violent of the last two millennnia, has been dated to within three months of the winter of 946 AD

www.theguardian.com

Tree rings could pin down Thera volcano eruption date

Charlotte Pearson's eyes scanned a palm-sized chunk of ancient tree. They settled on a ring that looked "unusually light," and she made a note without giving it a second thought. Three years later, and armed with new methodology and technology, she discovered that the light ring might mark the...

phys.org

 

[Halbhh]

Ah, this article looks interesting:
=============

About 50,000 years ago, a pile of volcanic rubble buried a conifer forest in the southern Lake District of Chile. Only an earthquake in 1960 brought the almost fossilized trees back into the light. Now, some 40 years later, researchers have studied the rings of the ancient trunks and have read from them details about Earth's climate during the Late Pleistocene when the trees were alive.

In fact, the trees belong to the species Fitzroya cupressoides, which are good climate indicators: their annual rings respond to variations in summer temperature.
(continues....)

Ancient Tree Rings Tell of Climate Changes

www.scientificamerican.com

 

[AV1611VET]

What makes this particular dating unique is the combination of tree rings and a solar flare in a known year. The effects of the flare on the tree's rings allowed them to identify the affected ring and count from this ring to the outer tree ring to find the year the tree was cut down.

So are the solar flares dated by the tree rings, or are the tree rings dated by the solar flares?

 

[AV1611VET]

I found this new to me dating technique using solar Flares and tree rings an interesting way to date events.

Assuming the tree right next to it didn't give a different date, right?

Every single tree in the vicinity recorded a solar flare on its exact same ring?

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

So are the solar flares dated by the tree rings, or are the tree rings dated by the solar flares?

You like asking that sort of question, don't you?

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

Assuming the tree right next to it didn't give a different date, right?

Every single tree in the vicinity recorded a solar flare on its exact same ring?

That one makes no sense. Trees can't be off by a year or so from their neighbours.

 

[AV1611VET]

You like asking that sort of question, don't you?

Sure do.

 

[AV1611VET]

That one makes no sense. Trees can't be off by a year or so from their neighbours.

So then every single tree recorded that solar flare in the same place?

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

So then every single tree recorded that solar flare in the same place?

It is very likely, yes. Solar flares, or rather solar storms, do project a massive amount of radiation, nothing fatal, mind, obviously, but still enough that it will be detected by certain things, such as trees. And a lot of trees around the world are old growth trees, so they're going to be VERY old.

 

[Occams Barber]

So are the solar flares dated by the tree rings, or are the tree rings dated by the solar flares?

The flare date came from separate tree ring evidence in tree ring archives based in England and Switzerland (the 2013 study mentioned in the article).

From the article:

Researchers identified a solar flare that struck Earth in 993 based on tree ring evidence, according to a 2013 study in Nature Communications.​

​

Every single tree in the vicinity recorded a solar flare on its exact same ring?

I doubt that live trees in the vicinity were there a thousand years ago. The tree ring count came from 'pieces of wood' - not live trees.​

​

From the article:​

The site contained more than 500 pieces of wood, Wallace says, including parts of posts as well as extra debris cast off in the construction of other artifacts. Wallace and her colleagues focused in on three pieces from three different trees that were in good enough condition, and that still had sufficient bark to count backwards towards the anomaly in the 993 tree ring caused by the solar flare. “It’s an enhanced form of dendrochronology,” Wallace says, referring to the scientific method more commonly known as tree-ring dating. ​

​

I think it's an insult to the OP when you bring up questions answered in the article. You obviously have not made the effort to read it in the first place.


OB

 

[AV1611VET]

It is very likely, yes.

I wonder why the article didn't say that.

That would be a major selling point, in my opinion.

But to make it sound like one tree somewhere recorded a solar flare in yyyy raises suspicion in my mind.

I have a feeling the other trees recorded different years and, of course, THAT wouldn't make the news.

 

[AV1611VET]

I think it's an insult to the OP when you bring up questions answered in the article. You obviously have not made the effort to read it in the first place.

Either that, or I did read it in the first place, and didn't understand it all.

I don't have the mindset of an academian, and can't discern things that others can.

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

I wonder why the article didn't say that.

That would be a major selling point, in my opinion.

But to make it sound like one tree somewhere recorded a solar flare in yyyy raises suspicion in my mind.

I have a feeling the other trees recorded different years and, of course, THAT wouldn't make the news.

That makes no sense. How would different trees 'record' different years? Like, there's records from Ireland, Germany and Korea, three very distinct and different locations, of the sky being lit by a massive aurora event, all following the same pattern: the sky turning red and looking akin to flames. All dated to 993 and 994 AD.

That's a solar storm hitting the earth and releasing radiation into the atmosphere, which is then absorbed by nature, specifically wood, which is then something we can pinpoint through the tree-rings and dating the radiometric date in the portion of the tree-rings in the wood to date to that period.

So why would different trees record different years?

 

[Occams Barber]

@AV1611VET

To complete your education this is a copy of the 2013 study mentioned above. If you make the effort to read it you will understand how solar flares are identified from tree rings (hint = Carbon 14 isotope, the same isotope used in Radiocarbon dating)

Another rapid event in the carbon-14 content of tree rings - Nature Communications

A strong increase in atmospheric 14C was measured in tree rings at AD 774 to 775, providing potential evidence of large cosmic ray fluxes to Earth, but the cause of this event is unclear. Here, Miyake et al. report a second 14C event in AD 993, which suggests that the most likely cause was a...

www.nature.com

OB

 

[Occams Barber]

Either that, or I did read it in the first place, and didn't understand it all.

I don't have the mindset of an academian, and can't discern things that others can.

I gave you the relevant extracts from the article. Neither was difficult to understand if you had made the effort.

It appears you have enough 'mindset' to argue these things without having sufficient 'mindset' to understand them in the first place.

OB

 

[AV1611VET]

I gave you the relevant extracts from the article. Neither was difficult to understand if you had made the effort.

It appears you have enough 'mindset' to argue these things without having sufficient 'mindset' to understand them in the first place.

OB

Then if you guys have so much more mindset than I do, how's come my questions aren't getting answered?

I don't think you guys even understand the point I'm making.

 

[Occams Barber]

Then if you guys have so much more mindset than I do, how's come my questions aren't getting answered?

I don't think you guys even understand the point I'm making.

both @Warden_of_the_Storm and I have gone to some trouble to answer your questions despite the fact that most of the answers were in the OP's attached article.

When a major solar flare occurs, as it did in 993AD, it has an effect on living trees all over the world. This why tree ring archives in Switzerland and England, as well as the North American wood samples used in this study, all have the same ring with excessive levels of C14. C14 can also be detected in ice cores by the way.

Since the date of the flare was known, it was only a matter of using 3 separate, suitable wood samples from the archaeological site to identify the flare effected ring with high C14 levels. Counting rings from the flare affected ring to the outer edge of the wood (i.e. the bark) gives the number of years between the solar flare and the tree being cut down.

The rest is simple arithmetic.

​

FLARE YEAR + NUMBER OF RINGS = YEAR TREE CUT DOWN​

​

You don't need to be an Einstein to get the basics of this.


OB