World’s oldest tree able to reveal planet’s secrets
A giant tree in southern Chile has survived for thousands of years and is on its way to being recognized as the world's oldest.
The trunk of this tree, known as the "Great Grandfather," measuring four meters (13 feet) in diameter and 28 meters tall, is also thought to contain scientific information that could shed light on how the planet has adapted to climatic changes.
It is believed to be more than 5,000 years old and is on the verge of displacing Methuselah, a 4,850-year-old Great Basin bristlecone pine found in California, USA, as the world's oldest tree.
"It's a survivor; no one else has had the opportunity to live this long," said Antonio Lara, an Austral University researcher and Chile's center for climate science and resilience who is part of the team measuring the tree's age.
The Great Grandfather is located on the edge of a ravine in a forest in the southern Los Rios region, about 800 kilometers (500 miles) south of Santiago.
Fitzroya cupressoides is a type of cypress tree found only in the southern hemisphere.
Tourists have walked an hour through the forest in recent years to photograph themselves next to the new "oldest tree in the world."
To protect the Great Grandfather, the national forestry body has increased the number of park rangers and restricted access.
In contrast, Methuselah's exact location is unknown.
It is the largest tree species in South America, also known as the Patagonian cypress.
It coexists with other tree species like coigue, plum pine, and tepa, as well as Darwin's frogs, lizards, and birds like the chucao tapaculo and Chilean hawk.
Its thick trunk has been cut down for centuries to build houses and ships, and it was heavily logged during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
- Joy in the scientific community -
Anibal Henriquez, a park warden, discovered the tree while patrolling the forest in 1972. He died of a heart attack 16 years later while horseback patrolling the same forest.
"He didn't want people and tourists knowing (where it was) because he knew it was very valuable," said Nancy Henriquez, a park warden herself.
Jonathan Barichivich, Henrique's nephew, grew up playing among the Fitzroya and is now one of the scientists studying the species.
In 2020, Barichivich and Lara used the world's longest manual drill to extract a sample from the Great Grandfather, but they did not reach the center.
They calculated the full age of the tree using a predictive model and estimated that it was 2,400 years old.
According to Barichivich, "80 percent of the possible trajectories show the tree would be 5,000 years old."
He hopes to publish the findings soon.
The study has sparked interest in the scientific community because dendrochronology - the method of dating tree rings to when they were formed - is less accurate in older trees due to rotten cores.
-'Symbol of resistance'
However, this is more than just a race for the record books, as the Great Grandfather is a wealth of knowledge.
"There are many other reasons that give this tree value and sense, as well as the need to protect it," Lara explained.
There are very few trees on the planet that are thousands of years old.
"Because they are symbols of resistance and adaptation, ancient trees have genes and a very special history." "They are nature's best athletes," Barichivich said.
"They are like an open book, and we are the readers who read every one of their rings," Carmen Gloria Rodriguez, an assistant researcher at Austral University's dendrochronology and global change laboratory, said.
These pages depict dry and rainy years based on the width of the rings.
Fires and earthquakes, such as the most powerful tremor in history that struck this area in 1960, are also recorded in those rings.
The Great Grandfather is also thought to be a time capsule that can provide a glimpse into the past.
"If these trees disappear, an important key to how life adapts to changes on the planet will vanish," said Barichivich.
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