The tree is assumed to be more than 5000 thousand years old and now scientists are in the process of recognizing it as the oldest tree on the planet.
A giant tree has been preserved in a forest in southern Chile, which scientists believe is more than 5,000 years old. Researchers named the ancient cypress “Great grandfather” and started the process of recognizing it as the world’s oldest tree.
According to researchers, the diameter of the body of the “great-grandfather” reaches about 4 meters, and the height reaches 28 meters. Researchers believe the giant cypress can not only claim to be the oldest tree on the planet, but also shed light on how Earth is adapting to climate change.
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Researchers are currently working to transfer the title of the oldest tree held by the ‘California, USA’ hairy pine ‘Methselah’ of the Great Basin to ‘Great Grandfather’.
Giant cypress is a unique “surviving tree” because no other tree has had the opportunity to live so long, according to Antonio Lara, a researcher at the University of Australia and the Chilean Center for Climatology and Sustainability.
The “great-grandfather” is known to be found snugly on the edge of a ravine in the forest, south of Los Rios, just 800 kilometers south of Chile’s capital, Santiago. Giant Fitzroya cupressoides is a cypress species endemic to the south of the continent. In recent years, it has become one of the local attractions – tourists walked for hours in the forest to take pictures with the “oldest tree in the world”. Due to the growing popularity of the cypress, local authorities have had to increase the number of park rangers and restrict access to it.
Note that the “great grandfather” is the Patagonian cypress, the largest species in South America. For centuries, the thick trunks of these trees were used to build houses and ships, and therefore, in the 19th and 20th centuries, this species was literally on the verge of extinction due to mass cutting.
The tree was first discovered by park ranger Hannibal Henriquez in 1972. He died of a heart attack 16 years later while on patrol in the same forest. In 2020, scientists managed to get a sample from Great-grandfather, after which they used the longest hand drills in existence, but failed to reach the center of the trunk.
Preliminary calculations showed that the sample was about 2400 years old. The researchers then used an estimation model to calculate the exact age of the Great-Grandfather. 80% of all possible orbits indicate that the giant cypress is over 5,000 years old.
The researchers hope that they will be able to publish the results of their work soon, as they do not just guarantee the title of “oldest tree in the world” for the giant cypress. The fact is that such an ancient tree contains a lot of information that it has been collecting for literally thousands of years. Scientists suggest they can learn more about what climatic events are occurring in this region and how the planet has managed to adapt to them.
Previously Focus wrote that the “loneliest” tree in the world was found – a hundred-year-old pine on the island.
Source: Focus
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