New World's Oldest Tree Beats 4,853-Year-Old Record Holder

The Chilean scientist who has studied the world's oldest tree says it's an astonishing 5,484 years old, reports AccuWeather.

There is one majestic tree that stands out among the lush green forest of the Alerce Costero National Park in southern Chile. According to a study conducted by Dr. Jonathan Barichivich, a Chilean scientist at the Climate and Environmental Sciences Laboratory in Paris, the ancient cypress tree known as "great grandfather" could be more than half a millennium older than the current record holder, the 4,853-year-old "Methuselah," a bristlecone pine in California.

However, the tree's trunk, which measures 4 meters in diameter, has posed a challenge to Chilean scientists attempting to determine the tree's exact age.

Normally, a one-meter cylinder of wood is extracted and the tree rings are counted to determine the age of a tree; however, the tool used is not long enough to reach the massive trunk's center, so the age of the tree will be determined only to the minimum. The researchers could not count all of the rings and the minimum age is estimated.

The scientific challenge, according to Barichivich, for this type of tree is to estimate the part that the team cannot see and that is missing using science. The millennial alerce underwent the same procedure.

According to Barichivich, the method yields information that 80% of all possible growth trajectories give an outcome age of more than 5,000 years for this living tree. "Great Grandfather" has the potential to become not only the world's oldest tree but also the world's oldest living thing, having survived multiple epochs of human civilization, including the end of the Stone Age.

Great Grandfather

Barichivich hopes that viewers will consider what it means to live 5,000 years and put things into perspective. The scientist hopes that this will help people understand the current challenges, which include the earth's ecological and climate crisis.

According to The Guardian, "Great Grandfather" grows in a cool, humid environment, but climate change is causing the environment around the forest to become drier, which is one threat the tree faces in addition to human threats. If Barichivich's calculations are correct, the tree predates almost all known forms of human written communication.

The earliest known human writing was dated to around 3,400 B.C., roughly 78 years after the "Great Grandfather" tree began growing, according to the Getty Center, a cultural and philanthropic institution based in Los Angeles.

Even though Barichivich hopes to publish his estimate in the coming months, he has yet to do so formally because his projection does not include a complete count of the tree's growth rings.

the great grandfather is an ancient cypress tree, specifically an alerce tree. It is a coniferous tree native to southern Chile and southern Argentina, is related to redwoods, and shares many characteristics with them.

Read also: Scientists Claim These Microfossils Could Indicate Earth's Oldest Life 

Alerce Trees

Alerce trees are redwood relatives found south of the equator, according to the Save the Redwoods League.

While redwoods can reach heights of 300 feet, the alerce tree only reaches an average of 164.04 feet, and it does so at a glacial pace, taking hundreds of years to reach full height. Redwoods can grow up to ten feet per year and reach their full height in less than a century. Alerce trees can also live to be very old.

An alerce stump in southern Chile had 3,622 growth rings, according to a 1993 study by Antonio Lara of the Austral University of Chile, Valdivia.

In the United States, old tree locations are protected, but this is not the case in Chile.

Visitors frequently visit the "Great Grandfather" tree, frequently leaving the observation platform, stepping on the tree's roots, and removing pieces of its bark.

Barichivich is concerned that the tree's survival will be jeopardized by ongoing damage and climate change.

Related article: 4,851-Year-Old Tree in California Reflects Nature's Resourcefulness for Long Life