Mystery Of Infamous 'New England Dark Day' Solved By Tree Rings


	Mystery Of Infamous 'New England Dark Day' Solved By Tree Rings

revenantdm

6-28-2008 8:15 AM

400 views

tags:

washington, dark, new england, tree rings, fires, unsolved, mystery

revenantdm says:

Damn, there goes another great "mystery!" This is one of the better researched and annotated mysteries as the article says of what people recorded of animal behavior and that Gen. George Washington commented on it in his journal.
Tree ring dating is helping us understand many strange atmospheric events. Listen the trees are "talking."

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<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/8e41ba3f-ce46-4f30-aafd-384e92230ef6/8F14721A-2E80-4BE3-8F8D-DE216D248890/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://www.monstrous.com/content/view/6141/354/" href="http://www.monstrous.com/content/view/6141/354/" style="font-size: 11px;">www.monstrous.com</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.monstrous.com/content/view/6141/354/">
					Mystery Of Infamous 'New England Dark Day' Solved By Tree Rings</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.monstrous.com/content/view/6141/354/">
At noon, it was black as night. It was May 19, 1780</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.monstrous.com/content/view/6141/354/">Accounts of that day,
which became known as 'New England's Dark Day,' include mentions of
midday meals by candlelight, night birds coming out to sing, flowers
folding their petals,and strange behavior from animals</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.monstrous.com/content/view/6141/354/">The mystery of
this day has been solved by researchers at the University of Missouri
who say evidence from tree rings reveals massive wildfires as the
likely cause, one of several theories proposed after the event, but
dismissed as 'simple and absurd.'</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.monstrous.com/content/view/6141/354/">
Limited ability for long-distance communication prevented colonists
from knowing the cause of the darkness</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.monstrous.com/content/view/6141/354/">In the midst of the Revolutionary War, Gen. George Washington noted the
dark day in his diary while he was in New Jersey</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.monstrous.com/content/view/6141/354/">
Nearly 230 years later, MU researchers combined written accounts and
fire scar evidence to determine that the dark day was caused by massive
wildfires burning in Canada</blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/8F14721A-2E80-4BE3-8F8D-DE216D248890/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content9.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>

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