Dendrochronology is the science that determines the age of trees from the number of rings found in the horizontal cuts of their trunks.
According to this technique, created by the American astronomer AE Douglass (1867-1962), from the University of Arizona, each ring represents a year of our calendar.
METHODOLOGY
During his research in the forests of northern Arizona, the scientist developed the hypothesis that in this semi-arid region the growth of trees was mainly determined by the availability of water, hence the dry years should be recorded as narrow rings.
In 1914 Douglass built a chronology of almost five hundred years from the rings of a pine tree, showing through the available climate records that the width of them was directly related to the precipitation of the previous winter.
Dendrochronology (from Latin dendros, tree, and chronos, time) has different branches, such as dendroarchaeology, which records fossil remains, and dendroclimatology.
TOOLS TO MEASURE THE YEAR
In order to estimate the age of the trees without having to cut them down, there is a method that is based on the use of tree borers.
These tools do not damage the trunk and are introduced to the center of the tree to obtain a small cylinder in which the tree’s rings can be cut.
Math use
If we know the growth factor, that is its width, by multiplying it by the diameter of said tree we can obtain an estimate of its age.
The growth factors are varied and depend on the environment where tree growth occurs. For example, in a city it is slower than in the countryside.