#1 Meet Yggdrasil
Posted: Fri Apr 18, 2008 3:46 pm
Swedes find the world's oldest tree
Swedes find 'world's oldest tree'
A tree said to be the oldest on the planet - thought to be nearly 10,000 years old - has been found in Sweden.
Scientists from Umeaa University discovered the spruce on Fulu Mountain in Dalarna province while carrying out a census of tree species there in 2004.
The age of its genetic material was recently calculated using carbon dating at a laboratory in Miami, Florida.
Scientists had believed the world's oldest trees were 4,000-year-old pine trees found in North America.
The oldest, a bristlecone pine named Methuselah located in California's White Mountains, is aged 4,768, according to the Guinness Book of World Records.
Cloning
The new record contender, which would have taken root just after the last ice age, was found among a cluster of around 20 spruces believed to be more than 8,000 years old at an altitude of 910m (2,985ft) on Fulu Mountain.
The visible portion of the spruce was comparatively new, but analysis of four "generations" of remains - cones and wood - found underneath its crown showed its root system had been growing for 9,550 years, Umeaa University said.
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