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Celebrate Earth Day With a 4,800-Year-Old Tree (If You Can Find It) Celebrate Earth Day With a 4,800-Year-Old Tree (If You Can Find It)
(about 4 hours later)
This Earth Day, we celebrate the world’s oldest known tree, a Great Basin bristlecone pine, which turns 4,847 or so this year. The forest service is so protective of its ancient, gnarled star that it will not even share its picture.
But you can’t see it — well, you can, but you wouldn’t know for sure which tree it is. Officials say they fear that an image might enable a particularly determined visitor to track down its precise location in Central California’s Inyo National Forest.
The United States Forest Service keeps the tree’s exact location secret to protect it from would-be vandals, researchers and loggers. At 4,847 or so years old, Methuselah is the world’s oldest known living tree, which makes it — in the mind of its human protectors — too old for guests.
The tree, known as Methuselah, is said to sit atop a wind-battered mountain in the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest, a part of Inyo National Forest in east-central California. The tree did not make it through several thousand years of civilization only to be either harassed by a horde of Instagrammers eager to carve their names in its bark or assassinated by a reckless researcher.
Methuselah’s age was discovered by Edmund Schulman, a scientist with the University of Arizona’s Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, in 1957. Dr. Schulman estimated its age by taking core samples from the tree and counting its rings. Dendrochronologists — people who study the ages of trees — have examined at least tens of thousands of trees around the world since then, but none have been quite as senior as Methuselah. It has happened before.
The forest service is so protective of Methuselah’s identity that it does not release pictures of the tree, lest a woodsy sleuth track down the tree based on its appearance. (Debra Schweizer, a spokeswoman for Inyo National Forest, suggested that it might be irresponsible for a news organization to publish a picture of Methuselah.) The former oldest tree, Prometheus, was cut down in 1964 in Great Basin National Park in Nevada by a graduate student researching the effects of climate change on receding glaciers by measuring their influence on the size of the rings of ancient pine trees. There are a few accounts of what happened. The student, Donald R. Currey, said in a PBS documentary that the normal approach to coring a tree was not working, so he cut it down with the help of some foresters. Members of the forest service said he got his drill bit stuck in the tree, and he and the foresters cut it down to remove his tool. Only after the tree had been felled and he counted its rings did he realize that he had just slain the oldest known tree on Earth, which was then a wizened 4,900 years old.
The former oldest tree, Prometheus, was cut down in 1964 in Great Basin National Park in Nevada by a graduate student researching the effects of climate change on receding glaciers, whose size could be measured by their influence on the rings of the ancient pine trees. Methuselah was nearly 4,790 by the time anyone realized just how exceptional it was. Edmund Schulman, a scientist with the University of Arizona’s Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, calculated its age in 1957.
There are a few accounts of what happened: The student, Donald R. Currey, said in a PBS documentary that the normal approach to coring a tree was not working and that he wasn’t experienced enough to know what to do, so he cut it down with the help of some foresters. Members of the forest service said he got his drill bit stuck in the tree, and so he and the foresters cut it down to remove his tool. Of course, it’s not possible to say that any given tree is definitely the oldest tree on Earth because not all trees have been analyzed in this way. But dendrochronologists — people who study the ages of trees — have examined at least tens of thousands of trees around the world since then, and none have been confirmed to be as senior as Methuselah.
There is no way to know a tree’s age just by looking at it, said Matthew Salzer, a research associate at the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research. But it does usually have certain markers that can tip off researchers to its old age: smooth bark, thick branches or a spiked top where the tree has died in places. To pin down the date (or era) of Methuselah’s birth, Dr. Schulman took several samples from the tree using a tool called an increment borer and matched up the ring patterns from each sample “to travel back in time,” said Matthew Salzer, a research associate at the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research. Because bristlecone pines like Methuselah do not have cylindrical trunks — they are twisted by the wind into natural sculptures — taking samples from different parts of the tree can give an estimate of the tree’s age, Dr. Salzer said.
To pin down the date (or era) of Methuselah’s birth, Dr. Schulman took several samples from the tree using a tool called an increment borer and matched up the ring patterns from each sample “to travel back in time,” Dr. Salzer said. Because bristlecone pines do not have cylindrical trunks — they are twisted by the wind into natural sculptures — taking samples from different parts of the tree can give an estimate of the tree’s age, Dr. Salzer said. In the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest, the part of Inyo National Forest where Methuselah lives (that’s as specific as the forest service will get), there are many ancient trees. There is no way to know a tree’s age just by looking at it, Dr. Salzer said. But it does usually have certain markers that can tip off researchers to its old age: smooth bark, thick branches or a spiked top where the tree has died in places.
Bristlecone pines often live for thousands of years in extreme conditions, and their growth rings can give scientists a lot of information about environmental conditions in the time before satellites, pens, paper or the Roman alphabet. It’s possible that another tree could steal the crown from Methuselah — possibly before it turns 4,848. Some organizations have suggested that there is a tree in the same forest that is 5,065 years old. But the existence of this tree, and its age, could not be confirmed by the forest service, the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research or the Archangel Ancient Tree Archive.
Like many old things, bristlecone pines are also very slow-moving: Their trunks start dying around their 1,000th birthday, and their living tissue — their crowns and vascular tissues — grow about one-hundredth of an inch in a good year, which makes it difficult to accurately determine their age, said Ms. Schweizer. Researchers are still investigating this other tree, said Debra Schweizer, a spokeswoman for Inyo National Forest, who pointed out that bristlecone pines grow so slowly, about one-hundredth of an inch in a good year, that it makes it difficult to accurately determine their age.
While Methuselah is a special tree, it might not be the oldest one in the forest, Ms. Schweizer said, adding, “if you are so focused on seeing that tree, you are literally missing the forest for the tree.” She also cautioned visitors against fixating too much on ancient celebrities like Methuselah.
Some organizations suggest that there is a tree in the same forest that is older than Methuselah — they estimate that it is 5,065 years old — but the existence of this tree, and its age, could not be confirmed by the forest service, the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research or the Archangel Ancient Tree Archive. “If you are so focused on seeing that tree, you are literally missing the forest for the tree,” she said.
“There is likely a tree older than Methuselah in the grove, but researchers are still confirming its exact age,” Ms. Schweizer said. Even as safe as the tree may be from an onslaught of gawkers and vandals, Methuselah cannot ward off the inevitable: The trunks of bristlecone pines begin to die around their 1,000th birthday.
To put things in perspective, Methuselah, named for the biblical figure who lived to be 969 years old, had long since spread its roots in the soil when the Egyptians began building the pyramids, and democracy would not begin for another 2,212 years. But even if Methuselah were to last only a few hundred more years, it has been quite a life. To put things in perspective, Methuselah, named for the biblical figure who lived to be 969 years old, had long since spread its roots in the soil when the Egyptians began building the pyramids, and democracy would not begin for another 2,212 years.