2008 年 29 巻 12 号 p. 777-781
In dendrochronology, the felling date that affects the construction date of architectures can be estimated by using a statistical average number of sapwood rings only in woods having a recognizable sapwood/heartwood boundary. However, it could not be estimated in discoloured woods previously because of the indistinguishable sapwood. In this paper, we report a method that can discriminate the indistinguishable sapwood from heartwood in a discoloured ancient wood of Hinoki cypress by the direct mapping of molecular ions of specific substances using time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (TOF-SIMS). The results allowed the determination of the felling date of the discoloured wood. TOF-SIMS has shown to be useful for investigating the distribution of minute amounts of chemical components in woods.