Spartacus coast redwood .. # 20 - ish

by Mario Vaden

"I'm Spartacus !"

This redwood is named after a Thracian gladiator during a slave revolt against the Roman Republic, 111 B.C. - 71 B.C. Kirk Douglas played Spartacus in a 1960 movie by the same name. The screenwriter had been blacklisted, but President-elect J. F. Kennedy crossed picket lines to view the film. Spartacus was Universal Studio's biggest success until Airport showed in 1970.

A nicely formed redwood at Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park. There are few redwoods this large on hillsides away from creeks. In 2010, Chris Atkins did a preliminary measurement of 314.93 feet tall. Michael Taylor measured the first 110' of the trunk indicating potential for 15,000 to 16,000 cubic feet of wood in the first 110 feet. The trunk at chest high dbh was 19.73' diameter. In 2011, I went uphill to photograph the bole. The trunk seems to increase diameter again about 140 feet up.

In 2014, John Montague said he did a wood volume measurement with a Relascope .. 26,000 cubic ft. wood volume, at least. Somewhere near #20 largest. That puts Spartacus size near Redwood Giant and close to the Big Redwood (#14) near Prairie Creek visitor center and Cal-Barrel Rd.

 

 

If you look around online there are some handy frustum calculators. The example below is one I used of for the initial measurements from Taylor. Basically, redwoods can be represented like cone increments, and each measured individually. As if the redwood were sliced into sections. The measurements needed for each section are height, top radius and bottom radius. A radius is half the diameter.

This redwood is not as large as the biggest titans like Del Norte Titan or Bull Creek Giant. But for comparison, the first 110' of the trunk is not far from the entire 18,000 to 19,000 cubic feet of 379' Hyperion.

advertisement