A new study found that an ancient alerce tree known as “great grandfather” could be more than 5,000 years old.
About
Key findings of the study:
The tree, in Chile’s Alerce Costero national park, is known as the Great-Grandfather and could be more than 5,000 years old.
Scientists were not able to determine an exact age based on tree rings because of the tree’s massive trunk.
Normally, a 1 meter (1.09 yards) cylinder of wood is extracted to count tree rings
but the great grandfather’s trunk has a diameter of 4 meters
The sample researchers extracted and other dating methods suggest the tree is up to 5,484 years old.
This method tells us that 80% of all possible growth trajectories give us an age of this living tree greater than 5,000 years.
There is only a 20% chance that the tree is younger.
The estimated age would beat the current record-holder, a 4,853 year old bristlecone pine tree in California, by more than half a millennium.
Alerce Tree:
It is known in Spanish as the alerce, the Patagonian cypress, Fitzroya cupressoides, is a conifer native to Chile and Argentina that belongs to the same family as giant sequoias and redwoods.
They grow incredibly slowly and can reach heights of up to 45 metres (150ft).
The Great-Grandfather towers over a cool, humid valley in the Alerce Costero national park, its gnarled crevices sheltering mosses, lichens and other plants.