But a new study reveals that the venerable tree is only 777 years old, which would make it a relative sapling compared to redwoods in forests further north, which date back as far as 1200 B.C. The tallest and oldest tree in Muir Woods sprouted about the time of the Spanish Inquisition.
Allyson Carroll, a dendrochronologist — that is, a tree-ring expert — at Humboldt State University, came up with the revised age by comparing a core sample from Tree 76 with a database of samples from other redwoods across California. The sample was taken by a team of scientists back in 2014, who climbed the trees in Muir Woods for the first time ever.
Carroll is working with the Save the Redwoods League, an environmental organization that is conducting the Redwoods and Climate Change Initiative, a project aimed at both gaining a better understanding of climate change from the historic trees and figuring out how to protect them from its effects.
Think of a tree’s rings like a fingerprint,” Carroll explained in an article on the league’s website. “There is a pattern of larger and smaller growth rings dependent on the climatic conditions experienced by that tree.”
Carroll also calculated the age of two fallen redwoods from Muir Woods. The Vortex Tree, which fell in 2011, was 693 years old, while ghe Solstice Tree, which fell the following year, was 536 years old, she concluded.
According to a National Parks Service history of the site, Muir Woods was given to the federal government in 1907 by its then-owner, William Kent, in order to prevent the forest from being seized by a local water company and logged to create a reservoir. While Kent staved off what would have been a devastating loss of trees, it may be that the forest itself is a survivor of some ancient catastrophe.
Read more at Discovery News
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