Ancient tree showed remnants of the largest-ever solar storm: researchers
CTV
An ancient tree held evidence of the largest solar storm in Earth's history, a process researchers say can be used to identify the risks in the future.
An ancient pine tree in the French Alps led researchers to discover the largest-ever solar storm in Earth's history.
Evidence suggests there was a "huge" spike in radiocarbon levels about 14,300 years ago, which scientists believe was caused by this newly identified solar storm.
And is Estimated as being twice the size of two previously discovered solar storms that occurred in 993 AD and 774 AD — known as the Miyake Events - the storm is the largest of any that have been uncovered so far.
The research, published on Monday in the journal of Royal Society's Philosophical Transactions, shows how strong the Sun's storms can be.
A group of international researchers from Collège de France, CEREGE, IMBE, Aix-Marseille University and the University of Leeds said they measured radiocarbon levels in ancient trees in the southern French Alps.
They said the rings in tree trunks, which they described as "subfossils," reflect major changes in the environment, so they can be helpful when looking for clues to what happened in the past.
The rings of one of the trees sampled – a species known as Scots pine, Scotch pine or Baltic pine – suggested there was a "spike" in radiocarbon levels about 14,300 years ago. The team then compared this sample with a sample taken from Greenland's ice cores to confirm whether the radiocarbon could be tied to a "massive" solar storm.