Secrets about climate, culture, time chiseled into ancient pine
Submitted by Andy B on Friday, 22 September 2006 Page Views: 1570
DiscoveriesCountry: United States Nothing should grow here. Late-summer storms hurl hail against the granite slope. The dawn air freezes all but six weeks of the year. There is no sign of soil. But on this lonely ridge, the oldest known tree in Colorado's Pikes Peak region, a Rocky Mountain bristlecone pine, has been growing for 2,040 years.It probably got its start when a gray, jaylike bird called a Clark's nutcracker hid seeds filched from a nearby pine into a nook on the ridge, then forgot about the stash.
Today, the tree's location is known to only six people, who keep the route hidden to protect the ancient pine.
The annual rings laid down in the stout trunk, however, are much more widely known. Decades ago, a local boy drilled a core sample no wider than a chopstick from the tree's trunk that revealed the rings.
Since then, scores of scientists have scrutinized the tiny dowel for insight into everything from ancient explosions to Aztec curses to global climate change.
So many have used the pine to study the climate that it has become a sort of global black box - a flight recorder for the past 2,000 years of Earth.
For all this, the pine doesn't look like much. It's about 15 feet tall. It has one living branch. Twenty centuries of storms have scoured all but 7 inches of bark off the 9-foot diameter trunk.
More: The Gazette
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