'Tree Story': What Tree Rings Can Tell Us About The History Of The World
Trees have stories to tell. We all learn when we’re kids that reading tree rings shows us how old a tree is. But expert Valerie Trouet says they can tell us so much more than that.
Trouet studies dendrochronology in the University of Arizona’s Laboratory of Tree Ring Research, which means she reads tree rings to date events and study how things like climate have changed over hundreds of years.
In her new book, "Tree Story: The History of the World Written in Rings," she tells her own story as a scientist in what she says is an adventurous field that’s brought her all over the world to uncover things like the locations of drowned pirate treasure and the role of olives in the fall of Rome.
The Show spoke to Trouet about the book and how beautiful looking at a piece of wood can be under a microscope.