Chronicles of the Rings: What Trees Tell Us

Other sources — lake sediments; ice core samples; coral; the otolith, or ear bone, of fish; and even the shells from living and long dead geoducks, a large bivalve with a snakelike appendage — add to the broader picture. Experts are using the shell ring information, combined with tree ring data, to understand how climate drives ocean productivity and the species mix of fish, to assist fisheries managers. An event in 774-775, first found in Japanese cedar trees and since found globally, is the strongest cosmic ray event in the tree ring record, a magnitude larger than the Carrington event, a solar storm in 1859, and apparently noted by people alive at the time.

Source: www.nytimes.com