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I warmly recommend everyone visit the Vasa museum in Stockholm https://www.vasamuseet.se/en Its a massive warship that capsized on her maiden voyage, and was raised in 1960s and is preserved in staggeringly amazing detail and completeness. Its absolutely gobsmackingly breathtaking :)
I warmly recommend everyone visit the Vasa museum in Stockholm https://www.vasamuseet.se/en Its a massive warship that capsized on her maiden voyage, and was raised in 1960s and is preserved in staggeringly amazing detail and completeness. Its absolutely gobsmackingly breathtaking :)
I especially liked the story about the Vasa construction being an example of bad project management: If there's too much of a power difference between different actors, people might drown.
"We took some chronological samples in the summer and we received the results which showed that wood is oak from Sweden, and it was cut in the winter between 1612 and 1613, which is a really good, precise measure." I'm really curious about the analysis process involved here. Is C-14 dating that precise? How do they know it was oak from Sweden?
The way you can date oak so precisely is by the comparative widths of the tree-rings. This is called dendrochronology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dendrochronology
"We took some chronological samples in the summer and we received the results which showed that wood is oak from Sweden, and it was cut in the winter between 1612 and 1613, which is a really good, precise measure." I'm really curious about the analysis process involved here. Is C-14 dating that precise? How do they know it was oak from Sweden?
Apperently there are enough core sample data to determine when a tree was cut down anytime the last few thousand years!
"We took some chronological samples in the summer and we received the results which showed that wood is oak from Sweden, and it was cut in the winter between 1612 and 1613, which is a really good, precise measure." I'm really curious about the analysis process involved here. Is C-14 dating that precise? How do they know it was oak from Sweden?
Just as likely they analyzed the width of the growth rings. Trees in a given area will have similar high growth and low growth years. And then there are big events where growth will correspond across wider regions.
(Yeah, it seems plausible that it would work.)
"We took some chronological samples in the summer and we received the results which showed that wood is oak from Sweden, and it was cut in the winter between 1612 and 1613, which is a really good, precise measure." I'm really curious about the analysis process involved here. Is C-14 dating that precise? How do they know it was oak from Sweden?
Maybe it has something to do with good records-keeping back then- these ship-worthy oak trees were treasured and protected:
"Oaks and cultural history Over the centuries, the oak has been a significant tree in Swedish life and in many ways Johan’s book is also a cultural history of the tree. Oaks were central, for example, to the shipbuilding industry during the reign of King Gustav Vasa. A large ship required approximately 2,000 oaks so laws were introduced to protect them; anyone caught cutting down or damaging oaks or seedlings found themselves subject to severe penalties."
http://www.su.se/english/about/news-and-events/a-pictorial-a...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just as likely they analyzed the width of the growth rings. Trees in a given area will have similar high growth and low growth years. And then there are big events where growth will correspond across wider regions.
So you mean for a plank of wood, you would do some statistical analysis based on the series of the widths of the growth things and then match them with other recorded widths/deltas to try to find a match? (Yeah, it seems plausible that it would work.)
"We took some chronological samples in the summer and we received the results which showed that wood is oak from Sweden, and it was cut in the winter between 1612 and 1613, which is a really good, precise measure." I'm really curious about the analysis process involved here. Is C-14 dating that precise? How do they know it was oak from Sweden?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dendrochronology Apperently there are enough core sample data to determine when a tree was cut down anytime the last few thousand years!
Wow. This is fascinating stuff. (I didn't think this field could be so interesting.)
Relevant random factoid: the Baltic Sea is almost completely enclosed by land and consequently unusually brackish (low in salt), which means a number of sea creatures common in saltier seas, most notably the shipworm, can't live there. Add in the fact that the water is really cold most of the year, and you get a large number of unusually well-preserved wooden wrecks, most famously the Vasa , that would have long go h…
Sweden has a western side too, which is where we get all the delicious https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandalus_borealis from.