Scientists Use Tree Rings to Date 3,000-Year-Old Volcanic Eruption

Within every tree lies a coded history to its past, and when stitched together with the information found in other trees, this record can span the past 10,000 years. Each year, a tree adds on a new growth ring to its trunk, preserving and reflecting the information about its surrounding climate and environmental conditions based in part on the width of that ring. Prof. Sturt Manning, classics, and Cornell’s Lab of Dendrochronology have been able to use tree-ring chronologies in combination with radiocarbon dating in order to place important events, such as the massive volcanic eruption at Santorini in the late 17th century B.C.