Monday 14 April 2008

Can Europe snatch a record from America?

For a long time, the longest-living work of nature still alive on the planet was assumed to be one of the giant redwoods on the west coast of the USA. Then, in 1953, the bristlecones in the remote arid mountains of the Great Basin, from Colorado to California, were found to be older.

Now, according to last Friday's "Independent", scientists have found a cluster of Norway spruces in western Sweden which may beat the bristlecones by thousands of years. Carbon dating showed the oldest tree first set root about 8,000 years ago.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6247774.stm

An interesting BBC News item; I thought there was a Yew in Perthshire which was 10,000 years old, but it turns out to be 5,000 years old.

Bit like the 6,000 jobs in the Baglan Energy Park!