What tools does a dendrochronologist use? And what do they help the environment?
Littleazngirl asked:
What tools do they use and please list their names. And what they do? Study tree rings or what else? Please help me, it’s my science project.
What tools do they use and please list their names. And what they do? Study tree rings or what else? Please help me, it’s my science project.
Why do you want us to do your work for you?
Go to wikipedia! Go to google! Go to the library!
Yes indeed! Do your own freakin’ homework.
One of my friends from college is now a dendrochronologist.
They use a special boring tool- sometimes very long ones- to retrieve samples from trees. I think they’re called Incremento borers. Of course, that’s for living trees; if the tree is dead, or there is a stump to work on, it is possible to use a chain saw to retrieve a section of the stump, which is then polished to reveal the rings.
If using a boring tool, the sample must be very carefully polished so as to provide the operator with a clean sample. My friend is apparently very picky about the sandpaper they use- it has to be very consistent, in order to provide a smooth finish with no extra marks from a stray, larger grain of sand.
Once the samples are in the lab, a measuring machine in conjunction with a microscope is used to select sample points- which are the distances between the rings in the sample. These are compared with reference libraries held in computers, or other samples in the lab. From these, it is possible to see how much a tree has grown from year to year- or even if they skipped a year because the weather was so bad.
See also the Wikipedia article on the topic. Good luck!
I actually had to look up what a dendrochronologist does, but once I found out, I knew the answer! These scientists use some sort of tool that drills into trees to take a core sample. Then they freeze these samples generally so that they can be studied in the lab environment. By looking at the tree rings, they can see when different events have happened in the environment, such as drought, fire, fungi infestation, bug infestation, etc. Some scientists outside of this field use this data to help current projects. In one of my classes, we looked at tree rings to discover ways to help salmon restoration.