neaq:

The Core of Climate Change
Marine biologists are studying core samples of coral hoping to find a history of climate change in the oceans. Check out this amazing post explaining the process and what they hope to find by counting the coral rings…

Unfortunately, the growth bands are not visible to the naked eye, so scientists have to be creative to see them! Our lab has turned to medical technology to visualize the coral banding pattern. Upon our return to our lab at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, we will scan the cores we have collected in a CT-scanner – the same way doctors examine their patients! These scans allow us to visualize the bands in the cores, and we can use these images of the cores and their bands to calculate coral growth rates. The particular coral species that we are studying grows about 1-2cm per year, and so a 3m long record could trace coral growth for up to the past 300 years! We can examine the growth record of multiple corals to understand the general trends in coral growth on these reefs.

Excellent post and more images, here.

(via gwebarchaeology)