Since childhood, the scientist Jonathan Barichivich perceived ‘great grandpa‘, the alere tree, which his family took great care of in Los Ríos (southern Chile), was special. Now, more than thirty years later, he has just learned why: At around 5,500 years old, it may be the oldest tree in the world..
The discovery occurred almost by chance while Barichivich was studying. the impact of climate change on larchA conifer native to Patagonia and threatened by different factors such as fire, logging or drought.
“We took a small sample of the tree and were able to estimate its age, although that wasn’t the original purpose of the study. We were very surprised to discover this. much older than we thinkBecause we believed that it was between 3,500 and 4 thousand years old,” he said.
Become the star of Alenen Costero National Park, 800 kilometers south of Santiago.great grandpa’ would be older “Metoselah”pine from California (USA) holding the record so far 4,853 years.
Antonio Lara, professor Southern University of Chile and the investigation’s co-author told Efe that both “uncloned” examplesthat is, they are not connected to other trees by a common root system, for example spruce Norway ‘Stale cikko‘, at least 9,550 years. “Uncloned trees live less, so this finding is very unusual,” he says.
Although the final result of the study will be announced in the coming months, its ‘journal’Science’ He recently published an invention that revolutionized the scientific world.
an unusual method
Dendrochronology, among other aspects, is the science that studies. age of trees thanks to their rings. To count them, the stem is usually drilled in the center and a specimen up to five millimeters wide is extracted. That’s how it was done”Methuselah“.
‘ in caseMillennium Larch‘, ‘ asFantastic Grandfather‘, piercing device He couldn’t reach the center because of the vastness of his trunk, which was more than 4 meters in diameter..
“We’ve only reached 40% of the total radius. We counted 2400 years in this small example. The question is how many years we didn’t reach in the other half, and the answer is not a simple sum,” he says. Barichivich, who currently works at the Climate and Environmental Sciences Laboratory in Paris.
Using a larger hole punch to reach the center would put the tree at risk, so a statistical model calculating the remaining years, combining information from hundreds of other larch trees in the park and estimating it 80% chance of being older than Methuselah.
Barichivich realizes that his method will not please the entire scientific community, but he says that skepticism about the new is “the natural process of science: how to verify”.
“It’s not a championship, we don’t like records. This tree has value for many things beyond its age,” adds Lara.
Three generations of “protectors”
‘Great Grandfather’ is closely linked to the history of the family. baricovicin the region known asprotectors.
The grandfather of the scientist who discovered larch was Aníbal Henriquez. ten years 1970 while working as a park ranger. Then his mother, also a forest ranger, took over from him, and now it’s his turn. “It became a part of our life and maybe we became a part of the tree’s life too,” she says.
Although its privileged location in the Valdivian forest, an hour’s walk from the park entrance, in a sort of valley with no other larch trees around it, protected it from logs and fires. weak structure and only 30% alive.
Now their biggest enemies are climate change and tourism.has increased significantly recently. For the first, the solution seems complicated.
For the latter, the state-owned National Forestry Corporation (Conaf) decided. temporarily closing the park until they devise a new strategy that allows visitors to arrive without jeopardizing the sample.
“Tourism and conservation are completely compatible, but the former must be regulated and regulated.”Accepting Pablo Cunazza from Conaf. ‘Great Grandfather’, Barichivich concludes: it’s a time capsuleCarrying a “message to the future” on her rings: “Our role is to protect it and let it continue to deliver its message.”
Source: Informacion
