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By Jill Yesko, University Relations
Contact (336) 334-3890
Posted:12-5-07
GREENSBORO, N.C. – To the untrained eye, it may not look like the most impressive tree in the forest, but at 459 years old or older, a Longleaf Pine tree discovered by a graduate student in the geography department could offer scientists a trove of information about centuries of drought cycles.
The tree is located in the Weymouth Woods Sandhills Nature Preserve near Southern Pines in central North Carolina. It was found by Jason Ortegren, a doctoral student in geography.
The tree is more than 100 years older than the previously known oldest Longleaf Pine. Older Longleaf Pine trees have been documented but they are no longer living.
The tree’s age was authenticated by examining the clustering of rings taken from a core sample that was analyzed at UNCG’s Carolina Tree-Ring Science Laboratory. The sample, which did not damage the tree, revealed interior rings that documented the tree’s age and environmental conditions under which it lived.
Ortegren, whose research in dendrochronology, the method of scientific dating based on the analysis of tree ring growth patterns, looks at the history of drought in the Piedmont region. The discovery of the tree will provide further data about climate change and will help scientists better understand how to predict cycles of short and long-term drought, said Ortegren.
The discovery of a 459 year old tree is especially helpful for scientists and climatologists because reliable weather records only go back about 100 years.
Much of North Carolina used to be covered by Longleaf Pines, the state’s official tree. Today, less that 10 percent of the original Longleaf Pine population that existed during colonial times is still standing in North Carolina.
University Relations
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