One recent morning, Alan Solomon, owner of Sawkill Lumber, reached out to Mukund Rao, a dendrochronologist—a scientist who studies tree rings.
One recent morning, Alan Solomon, owner of Sawkill Lumber, reached out to Mukund Rao, a dendrochronologist—a scientist who studies tree rings. The subject: old timber beams at a demolition site in New York City. If they moved quickly, they could intercede before the beams were carted off to a landfill.
Why would old timbers be of great interest to both Solomon and Rao? A lumber-company owner and a scientist might seem like an unlikely duo, but they are united by a passion for preserving historical record: Solomon through refurbished floorboards and furniture; and Rao, an assistant research professor at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, as time capsules that indicate past climate conditions and details about centuries-old human history. Both Solomon and Rao are members of Save the Timbers—a group dedicated to rescuing old timber, some of it dating back millennia, that would otherwise be discarded and forgotten.
After collecting samples from the timber at the demolition site, Rao brings them to his office at the Tree Ring Laboratory at the Lamont campus in Palisades, New York. (Lamont is part of the Columbia Climate School.) There, scientists will analyze the samples, racing against time to uncover the secrets of old-growth trees before they’re lost forever.
Read More: Columbia Climate School
Photo Credit: StockSnap via Pixabay
