Rex Adams, a tree ring lab research specialist, said he was sorry to see Nash leave. The UA tree ring lab has reached it's maximum of seven faculty members, Adams said. He said the lab is the only laboratory in North America that performs tree ring dating. Many tree ring related courses are offered by the Anthropology Department, however, the department does not extend grants to researchers in the field. Nash, a postdoctoral student who has worked UA tree ring lab projects since 1991, has many achievements over the last eight years.
Tree ring dating is accurate, concise and reliable.
He said that tree ring dating compressed the time scale and was able to pinpoint ecological variables in the past. Therefore, it changed the ideas of rates of culture changes and socioeconomic implications throughout history. Techniques of dendrochronology, the science of tree ring dating, categorize annual growth of tree layers within a certain year and use the properties of tree rings to uncover the history of the tree's environment. Cross-dating assigns calendar dates to rings by matching growth patterns to living specimens.