Terex Titan Coast Redwood .. #8

by Mario Vaden

 

This redwood is the Terex Titan, standing in Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park along a big flat near the park's largest creek. According to a choice of words written by Dr. Robert Van Pelt, I believe the discoverers were big redwood hunters Ron Hildebrant and Michael Taylor. The name refers to a 600+ ton General Motors truck with 3,500 horsepower used for operations like copper mining in Utah. It used to be the 8th largest known coast redwood back around 2013, before a bunch of new discoveries were found. For reference, 2009 data for Terex Titan redwood is 270 feet tall .. 21.3 feet diameter and 32,384 cubic feet wood volume. What you see below is the pretty side which has a small cave in the bottom. The other side has some damage to the bark where falling debris scraped against it.

Forest researcher Robert Van Pelt wrote that Terex Titan probably had a structure very similar to Iluvatar many years ago before some breakage happened. Richard Preston wrote in a chapter called Newfound World that Sillett spotted an 8 ft. tall Sitka Spruce growing in Terex Titan on one of the limbs in the canopy. Terex coast redwood also is one of the few redwoods where the lichen 'Fairy Puke' was found, a yellow-green & pink species. The area around Terex Titans redwood has the largest or tallest sword ferns I have seene exploring near Redwood National Park. I held a frond end up to eight feet, the reach of my arms overhead.

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Images below: The 1st photo was taken 2016 when I traveled down to take photos of one largest coast redwood for a big 60 inch print canvas. The 2nd photo from 2008 is the opposite side at the base of the trunk. It is a good example why charring from fires can happen so far up redwood trunks. However many decades or centuries it takes for fire to happen, when flames reach a pile like this, the flames can torch much higher than the pile. This heap is loaded with fungi and mushooms. It dropped when part of the rotted canopy collapsed. The 3rd photo taken 2009 is three images merged, from my first digital camera (amazing how much cameras improved in 10 years!)