Comments on: 8500-Year Old Tree Found in Sweden

By: Ron Lanner

Ron Lanner — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 03:41:46 +0000

Literally hundreds of news accounts of this spruce discovery have appeared, all of them virtually the same as the April 16 press release from Umea University. Due partly to language problems, and partly I suspect to Kullman’s unfamiliarity with tree morphology, more questions are raised than are answered. The most likely explanation for these trees’ persistence is layering, the rooting of branches usually held to the ground by snow, which can also become erected. These can become detached from the mother tree by decay or breakage. Spruces do this routinely, as do many firs and occasional pines. A mother tree that originated by seed could produce a clone of small bushes or small trees physically separate from each other, and each of these individuals could also layer over time.
Detached krummholz trees can migrate, as shown by John Marr at Boulder years ago. Wind may dry them out and kill them on the windward side while snow accumulates on the leeward side for them to layer into. But not 1 km. per year!
Kullman has provided few details and should publish this in a journal requiring careful morphological analysis in addition to the vaguely described genetic analysis. A cone macrofossil seems to have been found, but today’s bushes are unlikely to produce cones, let alone seeds. The photo, repeated ad nauseum, is probably a tree about a meter or two at most tall. It will have few rings. What is interesting is that such old rotting material was in a condition for carbon dating.
For comparisons with other old clones (like the aspens, creosote bush, and bush huckleberry mentioned) see my 2007 book — The Bristlecone Book: A Natural History of the World’s Oldest Trees (Mountain Press).

By: Geoff Sherrington

Geoff Sherrington — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 11:49:10 +0000

Re # 44 Jan Pompe

But how many years pass between successive tree rings before you can pick up the C isotope ratio difference with REAL confidence?

By: Geoff Sherrington

Geoff Sherrington — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 09:59:14 +0000

RE # 29 Armand MacMurray

Since clones would share the same DNA sequence, while trees that grew independently from seeds would not, it should be easy to tell.

Do the “jumping genes” of Barbara McClintock affect this generality?

By: Ulises

Ulises — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 09:27:27 +0000

Doesn’t something need to be dead to be able to carbon date it?

It appears that this was no problem at all; according to original (or close to the original) press release

Scientists found four “generations” of spruce remains in the form of cones and wood produced from the highest grounds.

(http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-04/src-wol041608.php)

So the “oldest living tree” is a compound of age-old wood debris and some recent green, said to be genetically identical.

Identical ?

everything displayed clear signs that they have the same genetic makeup as the trees above them

Rather weasely….. Can one expect to extract useful genetic material from dead wood which has been exposed to weathering for some millenia ?

And: It is easy to clone willows by cutting off branches and sticking them into humid soil, they are made for that. However, it never occurred to me to call the result the same tree as the one I collected the branches from.

Conclusion : We’d better ignore press releases. There is more than enough garbage around in the peer-reviewed domain.

By: Jon-Anders Grannes

Jon-Anders Grannes — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 14:31:25 +0000

Here is a Norwegian article about the 9.550 year old tree.
http://www.forskning.no/artikler/2008/april/179769

picture:
http://www.forskning.no/images/2008/april/179773Tre.jpg?size=medium

It started to grow above the low branches since the 1940s

By: Jon-Anders Grannes

Jon-Anders Grannes — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 06:09:04 +0000

Nothern Scandinavia is colder today than in the 1930s.
During the Medival warm period the treeline was 100 meters higher than today.
During the Holocene optimum, 8.000-5.000 the treeline was 300 meters higher than today and most of the glaciers in Norway did not exsist!

By: Andrey Levin

Andrey Levin — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 09:42:25 +0000

Doesn’t something need to be dead to be able to carbon date it?

Standard practice to grow soft-skinned vegetables in industrial greenhouses is to burn NG, cool the exhaust, and feed it into controlled environment of greenhouse to reach concentrations of 700-1000 ppm CO2, to be consumed by plants.

Literally, if one is to carbon-date reap and mouth-moistening hot-house tomato (some of hot-house tomatoes are incredibly tasty, depending on variety and freshness), it will yield that tomato is, actually… couple of millions years old.

By: David Smith

David Smith — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 22:29:45 +0000

Fortunately, the tree is well-positioned for future updates:

By: James Bailey

James Bailey — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 12:41:13 +0000

Thanks Jan for clearing that up for me.

By: Jan Pompe

Jan Pompe — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 05:59:52 +0000

“Doesn’t something need to be dead to be able to carbon date it?”

No, you can be carbon dated but don’t be surprised if it shows that you are as old as the food you ate a weak ago depending of course on the part of the body the tissue sample is taken from. Once the carbon is captured from the atmosphere it is fixed each years layer in tree rings being deposited on the previous years. It’s one of the ways we calibrate the carbon dating method.