A slice of larix (larch) driftwood collected from Phippsøya, The Seven Islands, matched to an origin along the Lena River in Russia in the 1700s. The slice was sanded, revealing the preserved rings.

But there's much more information to be gleaned from growth rings than simply a tree's age. This information comes to us through the science of dendrochronology. Tree rings can reveal more than ...

"The oldest juniper and the oldest woody plant ... but capable of producing rings like trees: the juniper was perfect for our studies," explains Angela Luisa Prendin, one of the Padua authors ...