Lately I questioned whether coast redwood could be the world’s oldest living tree. Possibly the huge titan in the image shown below. Take a short scroll down to see, then scroll back up here.

Until 2013, a bristlecone pine named Methuselah held that title with 4,448 years. Later, another bristlecone was declared 5,062 years. Somewhere beneath is Sequoiadendron, approximately 3,500 years.  These are just what’s known. Much about age is known by ring samples, and there are a lot of very old trees in the world that can’t be cut down or drilled to learn the age.

August 14, 2013, the SFGate ran an article relaying a bit of  research that “One tree in Redwood National and State Parks, near Crescent City, turned out to be 2,520 years old”. That implies Jedediah Smith park or even the Grove of Titans. But the 2500 year tree should be within a Redwood National Park research plot ( a friend just relayed data from published research study with a tree that age, uphill from a Redwood Creek in a study plot).

Now back to the coast redwood below, one of several enormous discoveries between 2010 – 2018. In 2014, Ron of our exploring network, estimated its age 2,500 to 3000 yrs. based on several trunks found with 2000 year ring counts, plus the known 2,520 year coast redwood.  But by 2018, Ron found even more, and older. In a December 2018 letter, he shared finding 8 coast redwoods at least 3000 years old. And like the Redwood National study plot redwood, these were smaller trunks.

As mind-bending as it may seem, I updated the age estimate for this redwood to 3,200 to 5000 years. If half this size and diameter can happen in 3000 years, even 5500 years is realistic. But since nobody is going to cut into the trunk to find out, the age must remain an estimate. I think there is zero chance it’s less than 2,200 years old. Most likely at least 3,000 years old. And no reason to doubt it could be 4,000 years to over 5000 years. Consider that even Muir Woods about a 5 hour drive south, displays a “cookie” about 1000 years old, and that trunk cross-section is barely 5 feet wide !!!

November 15 , 2022, a man Lucas Walker posted about wood found doing repairs to his parents’ house. He found a Douglas fir board with 230 growth rings in less than 6 inches, posting a photo in a Big Tree Seekers group. That kind of high ring count per inch is not exclusive to Douglas fir. It’s not likely that tree grew diameter that slowly its entire lifespan but it would take a tree like 12,000 years to reach the diameter of the redwood shown below if every 6 inches held 230 rings. 27 ft. diameter holds 1/2 foot 54 times. And 54 x 230 is over 12,000. So even 6,000 years is sane to imagine even it if the age can’t be ascertained.

Is it the world’s oldest tree? Nobody knows. Is bristlecone pine the oldest tree in the world? I seriously doubt it, because so many ancient trees exist that have never been dated. One other coast redwood I suspect being in the 3000 year to 4000 year range is Deja Vu, a diameter champion found in 2014. I think its growth rate was slower due to growing conditions, and it should be older than the current diameter champion “Captain Jack Sparrow” which is better protected from wind and closer to a brook (Capt. Jack hasn’t been published in photos yet).

There’s a chance the titan below and woolly mammoths inhabited Earth at the same time. New York Times ran an article March 2, 2017, titled “The Woolly Mammoth’s Last Stand” about a remnant that survived on the Arctic Ocean’s Wrangel Island until around 2000 BC

Is the coast redwood, larger than any trees of the grove of titans, the world’s largest tree