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- A bald cypress in North Carolina has recently been identified to over 2600 years
- The discovery makes it one of the oldest trees in the world.
- Researchers say that ancient tree rings provide a historical record of climate change.
A bald cypress in North Carolina was dated from the year 605 BC. BC, making it one of the oldest known trees on earth.
Scientists studied the tree's growth rings and used radiocarbon dating to determine that it is at least 2,624 years old, ranking it fifth among the oldest in the world, according to the report. # 39; study. The tree was part of the 110 samples sampled along the Black River, North Carolina, of a length of 65 km. Another tree was 2088 years old.
"It's one of the big old centers forests are left in the world, "said David Stahle, senior research scientist in geoscience at the University of Arkansas, Charlotte Observer.
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The bald cypress stands are on a property owned by Nature Conservancy in an area known as Three Sisters Swamp. According to the study, cypresses are the oldest living trees known to the United States outside of California and the world's oldest known wetland tree species. The oldest known living tree in the world is a bristlecone pine from the Great Basin in California, which is 5,066 years old.
"It's extremely unusual see an old tree stand along the length of a river like this, "Stahle said in an article published by the University of Arkansas. "Bald cypresses are valuable for wood and have been heavily exploited. Well under 1% of the original virgin cypress forests survived. "
Stahle is an expert in dendrochronology and dark circles research. He has been studying the bald cypress of the Black River since 1985. He had previously recorded a 1,700-year-old tree in the same area.
Scientist David Stahle and a team of researchers discovered a 2600-year-old tree in this bald cypress tree stand on the Black River in North Carolina.
(University of Arkansas)
In addition to the science involved in dating, ancient trees are a valuable resource for studying climate change. Their rings provide a chronological roadmap to help rebuild long periods of flood and drought.
In fact, Stahle began dating the trees as part of a study of climate change in the region, which revealed long periods of drought hundreds of years ago.
"It's an incredible coincidence that the oldest living trees known from the east of North America also have the most powerful climate signal. Stahle told Smithsonian Magazine "that the best correlations we have ever seen are with these trees, why it's that I do not know, they are incredibly old and extremely sensitive to climate, especially rainfall."
Dave Meko, a researcher at the University of Arizona's Tree Ring Research Laboratory who was not associated with Stahle's work, told Smithsonian that it was rare to find trees old enough to offer such a long vision of climate change.
"We do not have many places where we can sample tree rings for variations of more than 2,000 years of climate," said Stahle. "So where we can, we try to exploit them.The bald cypress is a mine of information about the South-East climate."
Stahle thinks that the discovery may well be the beginning of something even bigger.
"There are surely several trees trees more than 2,000 years old in Black River, "he told Charlotte Observer. "I am convinced that there are some who are approaching, if not more than 3000 years old."
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