An ancient Patagonian cypress living proudly in Chile’s Alenen Costero National Park may have set the record for the world’s oldest tree. Preliminary results of age estimation of a gigantic tree named Alenen Milenario, also known as the “great-grandmother,” suggest it may be around 5,400 years old.
If this estimate is correct, this tree will receive the crown of “oldest tree in the world” from an eastern California Bristlecone pine estimated to be 4,853 years old and known as Methuselah.
This species is the Patagonian cypress (Fitzroya Cupressoides), a conifer native to Chile and Argentina. It is nicknamed the “Redwood of the South” for its large size and reputation for withstanding the rigors of the time. It can grow up to 70 meters tall and up to 5 meters in trunk diameter. Unfortunately, it is currently considered Chile’s most threatened pine tree due to widespread felling and tourism in the region.
Dr. from the Climate and Environmental Sciences Laboratory in Paris. Jonathan Barichivich briefly appears as the estimator of the age of the enormous Patagonian cypress that inhabits the depths of Alenen Costero National Park. He arrived at this estimate using a special T-shaped drill that does not damage the body, with a basic sample from Alenen Milenario at the beginning of 2020.
It is usually possible to estimate the age of a tree by counting the number of rings on the cross-sectional trunk, with a one-year cycle of light wood growing at the beginning of the year and a dark ring growing at the end of the tree. However, due to the tree’s enormous size, a cross-section across the entire trunk could not be taken, meaning it had to be “filled in the gaps” through statistical modeling based on the growth rate of the rings, environmental factors, and random variation.
From this inventive method, Barichivich concluded that the tree is about 5,484 years old. “The result shows with 80 percent statistical confidence that the tree is more than 5,000 years old and most likely around 5,484 years old,” said
Barichivich.
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