People that have never done a SW Airlines commercial

[BobG]

Ever notice how Steve Bartman (the guy that caught the foul ball at a Cubs game) never did one of the Southwest Airlines "Wanna Get Away?" commercials?

Here's one that tops even Steve Bartman. Donald Currey has never done a Southwest Airlines commercial, either.

Donald R. Currey was a graduate student doing research on climatic change during the Little Ice Age and needed a sample from an old tree. The width of the tree rings would indicate whether it was a warm year or a cold year.

He picked a bristlecone pine on Wheeler Peak in Eastern Nevada since bristlecone pines are known to grow to very old ages (in fact, the oldest known living non-clonal tree in the world at that time was 4,796 year bristlecone pine in California named Methuseleh). Being on the peak, Currey felt it had a good chance of being over 2,000 years old.

Unfortunately, when he tried to get a sample, the bore broke inside the tree. Since he needed a sample, he got permission from the Forest Service district ranger to just cut the tree down. He got a couple slabs from the tree and took them to his hotel and started the counting. And counting. And counting. And counting.

By time he was done counting, he had 4,862 tree rings, meaning the tree was at least 4,862 years old. Based on the location of the sample, the actual age of the tree was at least 4900 years old, possibly over 5000 years old.

Donald Curry had just found the oldest living non-clonal tree, in fact, the oldest non-clonal living organism in the world!

Wait. Let me rephrase that.

Donald Curry had just killed the oldest living non-clonal tree, in fact, the oldest non-clonal living organism in the world!

He only spoke of the incident in public once, explaining how it came to happen on a Nova episode. Even in private, it was a subject that was off limits. So no one really knows just how he felt about killing the oldest living organism in the world.

It is interesting to note that he spent the rest of his career doing research in the Bonneville Salt Flats. You could go for miles without seeing a tree.

http://books.google.com/books?id=MzylbTC59VMC&pg=PA61&lpg=PA61&dq=currey+oldest+tree&source=bl&ots=JEyVQV0g80&sig=yKhOL-pi-ZiH4EXztigTJRLJ9RE&hl=en&ei=bfuwTOjNCpKisQPl3an9Aw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9&ved=0CDYQ6AEwCDgU#v=onepage&q=currey%20oldest%20tree&f=false

 

[Evo]

Poor tree.

 

[jgm340]

My god! That's awful!

 

[lisab]

Ugh, that's a horrible story!

And I have one correction, Bob: you said he "needed" a sample. I'd say, he "wanted" a sample.

 

[rootX]

He is an idiot.

 

[Phrak]

If someone could organize a crew to locate and cut down more ancient candidate bristle cone pines surely they could count more rings on one of them and poor Donald Currey wouldn't feel so bad. Just a thought...

 

[BobG]

He is an idiot.

Only if you extend that description to all scientists involved with dendrochronology. The practice, itself, is very important for dating archeological finds and for past climate information. Dendrochronology is also used to calibrate radiocarbon dating.

Boring is preferred since you need many samples and would rather not cut down 100 trees. Cutting at least a couple down and getting slabs provides a more accurate representation (occasionally, a tree ring won't extend all the way around a tree, but that can usually be overcome by getting a lot of samples in the area).

And theories at that time suggested the oldest trees should exist in California (the western edge of the geologic area), not the East. And the theories were correct. Whole groves of bristlecone pines in California are over 4,000 years old. After Currey cut down the "Prometheus tree", other trees in the area were sampled. None of the other trees in that area are older than 3,000 years old.

Just the quirks of probability that one tree in that area managed to survive whatever plagues of pests and diseases eventually take out trees in that region. The California bristlecone pines grow so old because they grow in austere conditions where most pests and diseases can't survive.

You could raise the debate about whether getting accurate dates of the Earth's history is important enough for anyone to cut down trees, but Currey, himself, was just unlucky.

He looked around at the grove of trees for about 5 minutes and decided that looked like a good sample.

 

[cronxeh]

Oh that is awesome and hilarious. I want to go out there and cut down random trees, count their rings and see if I can beat his 5000 year old discovery! Great idea.