The article describes what the annual ring is, how it is formed, where it can be found, what science is engaged in studying rings.
Life on our planet was formed andIt exists due to many factors, and one of them is the appropriate gas composition of the atmosphere. Or rather, the presence of sufficient oxygen. They provide us with plants that absorb the carbon dioxide exhaled by most living beings. Currently, most developed and civilized countries strictly monitor the state of their forests, including creating national parks, where you can find very old trees. They are interesting not only from an aesthetic point of view, but also because scientists, researching them, gain knowledge about times long past, and the age of trees is determined by means of tree rings. But what is the annual ring, why is it formed and where, besides the trees, are there still? In this we understand in this article.
Annual rings, or annual layers, are calledareas of cyclical tissue growth in plants and some other species, for example, mushrooms and mollusks. Their appearance is due to climatic temperature differences and some other factors. Now we know what an annual ring is.
But the most characteristic and pronouncedannual rings are observed in perennial woody plants. Especially those that grow in the zone of moderate latitude, when the periods of summer-spring growth of the cambium alternate with the rest time in the autumn-winter part of the year. If we talk about the appearance of the rings, then each of them is divided into two parts: dark and light. Coniferous trees are interesting in that their growth rings are most clearly visible, since the wood that formed later has a pronounced dark shade. Now we know what an annual ring is. Their study is engaged in such a science as dendrochronology.
Dendrochronology is a scientific disciplinewhich is engaged in the dating of events, natural phenomena and archaeological finds on the basis of studies of tree rings or other biological remains that possess such.
For example, this method is most often used to determine the age of some objects or buildings made of wood by annual rings.
With what is this science and what it does, we figured out. Now let's look at how the rings are formed.
As we already know, they appear in those treesthat grow in areas with pronounced seasonality. Simply put, in summer and in winter they do not grow equally due to temperature fluctuations and other conditions. This leads to the fact that the layer of wood, growing in winter, differs from the summer by a mass of signs: color, density, texture, etc. If we talk about visual manifestation, then on the transverse saw cut of a tree trunk you can see a clear structure having the form of concentric rings.
В основном – это возраст.Each ring corresponds to one year, by its thickness and texture it is possible to judge what then was the year from a climatic point of view: approximate temperature, amount of precipitation, their frequency, and so on. This method is also used to determine the age of some ancient wooden products: they are cut, they are looked at the number of rings, and then compared with a sample whose age is known. Thus, you can find out when a tree was cut, which served as material for the object.
Как уже было сказано, годичные кольца встречаются not only in the trees, but also in the animal world. You can find them in those tissues or structures of the skeleton that grow continuously, but are subject to climatic effects, seasonal temperature changes. These are scales, bones and fins of some species of fish, shells of mollusks of various types, beaks and bones of birds, animal horns, bones of some mammals. So now we know what the tree rings in biology are. According to him, scientists determine everything the same as in the case of trees: age, climate features of the period, and so on.
