A real Stradivarius? A student researcher helps find the answer
2011-10-28 09:56:17
Mount Allison English and geography student Cecilia Jennings was awarded the Founder’s Award for best undergraduate presentation at the 23rd Annual Meeting of the Atlantic Canadian Association of Geographers. Another Mount Allison student, Jason Maillet, received second place. Mount Allison’s geography and environment department hosted the event, which saw geography professors and students from universities across Atlantic Canada present their research.
Jennings presentation stemmed from a summer of research on a romantic quest — finding out whether an old violin was actually a Stradivarius, made by the most well-known instrument-maker of the 18th century. The owner of the violin delivered it to the Mount Allison Dendrochronology Laboratory (MAD Lab), with a Stradivarius-like label on the inside of the instrument that said the violin was made in 1734. If it was a Stradivarius, the violin was not only a beautiful instrument, but also incredibly valuable.
According to Jennings’ supervisor and head of the MAD Lab Dr. Colin Laroque, “Even though the odds that it was a real Stradivarius were pretty remote, the suspicious circumstances of its discovery raised some questions.”
Jennings, a second-year student, dated the wood using dendrochronology, a scientific method of dating based on the analysis of patterns of tree-rings.
“We were looking for a radial-growth signature in the wood common to the European Alps before the 1734 date on the label. If the ring signature postdated the label date, the violin would join the list of replicas,” says Jennings.
Jennings had a lot of help from other researchers on campus, including James Ehrman from the Digital Microscopy Facility. The actual research was a fairly rigorous process, but she says it remained very exciting throughout.
“As one of the audience members said, the violin, even though it is not an authentic Stradivarius, certainly has its own story, and that's something I'm looking forward to hearing about from the owner,” says Jennings. “And in the process of trying to determine the age of the wood, we encountered some problems that we were able to solve in innovative ways, which will hopefully be really useful for other dendrochronological applications. So, with those two factors combined, I'm not that disappointed in the results.”
Jennings is extremely grateful to have had the opportunity to do research over the summer. Her research was funded in part by the Marjorie Bell Fund.
“It's the sort of summer job I never dreamt of having. The MAD lab is such a wonderful resource for the University,” she says.
Third-year environmental science student Jason Maillet presented work he did with fellow environmental science student Emma Davis. The two were looking at a special type of problem. Dendrochronology is commonly used by scientists to paint a picture of the climate that prevailed during a tree's lifetime. These techniques work equally well for trees currently living, and wood that is an artifact of a tree that lived hundreds or even thousands of years ago.
But how do you learn about past climates if you are in a location where trees can’t grow?
Maillet explains, “We tested the dwarf shrub species Cassiope mertensiana to see if it had the potential to provide us with insights into past climate conditions. C. mertensiana is a mountain heather that grows above tree line. Using samples from three alpine sites within Jasper National Park, we adapted conventional dendrochronological methods to look for annually-resolved sequences in the alpine shrub.”
The pair determined the common growth signal for Cassiope mertensiana and that the species is particularly sensitive to environmental conditions, even more so than most trees.
For more information on the Annual Meeting and Conference of the Atlantic Division of the Canadian Association of Geographers, visit: http://www.mta.ca/acag11/program.html
PHOTO CAPTION: Student researcher Cecilia Jennings with James Ehrman from the Digital Microscopy Facility.