A scientist cut down a random tree in 1964 for research — it turned out to be the oldest tree on Earth

Ever done something that caused you to feel huge regret later? While all of us may have stories to share, they might not top Donald R. Currey, whose single decision to cut a tree for research purposes cost us the oldest known tree on Earth. In 2001, for a NOVA documentary, Currey shared the story of how he became responsible for the demise of Prometheus, a more than 4,000-year-old bristlecone pine, per IFLScience.

In 1964, a young graduate, Currey, theorized using trees for his research in finding glacial features below the Great Basin's Wheeler Peak. Scientists use tree ring width and chemical signals to understand past environmental changes. Tree growth rings preserve clues about the climate when they formed, which offered insights into glacier activity during those periods as well. As Currey intended, these growth changes in the trees match climate signals and help in finding the timing of major climate shifts. To find the growth ring date of the tree, Currey needed to extract a borer, which is a pencil-sized cylinder of wood from the tree. He received permission from the U.S. Forest Service to obtain the core sample. Unfortunately, during his study, he met with a serious challenge.

In the 2001 documentary, he explained that the usual method of taking core samples did not work, so he had to rely on taking a one-foot-wide sample from the trunk. After seeking permission to cut down the tree from the Forest Service, Prometheus was felled. While he had a rough idea that the tree was over 4,000 years old, he was unaware of how old it truly was. As he counted the rings, the numbers kept rising and went past 4,500 and then 4,600 years. Skeptical of the result, he counted again and again, only to realize there was no error. The tree turned out to be 4,900 years old. Prometheus was the oldest recorded tree at that time and had already been cut down. Today, its remains lie at the site of what is now called Great Basin National Park in Nevada.

The Great Basin was home to one species of bristlecone pine, the Great Basin bristlecone pine (Pinus longaeva), which is among the hardiest trees and can live for more than 1,000 years. Their growth is slower, and they have a particularly twisted appearance, thanks to dense wood that protects them from the effects of weather, insects, and fungi. Currey, who had never heard of the Great Basin bristlecone pine before graduate school, took an interest in them after his mother sent him a National Geographic article written by Edmund Schulman, the researcher who later sampled the bristlecone pine Methuselah, which came to be known as the oldest known non-clonal tree in the world. In fact, a 1999 study published in Quaternary International studied long tree ring records from oak and pine trees to give a year-by-year timeline of Earth's past climate.

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