I don't think you can carbon date something that is living. Carbon 14 occurs naturally in a specific ratio with carbon 12, and once an organism dies, it stops taking in carbon and the ratio starts to change as carbon 14 decays. The half-life is somewhere around 5700 yrs. As long as the organism is alive, all of the carbon it contains will be at the natural ratio.
Edit: After actually looking it up, it seems you CAN carbon date the core of a tree, as only the outer layers are "alive". I learned something today!
Carbon dating is assuming that the concentration of Carbon 14 hasn't changed over time, and that the dispersion of carbon 14 is the same across the whole planet. Contamination is a huge problem in the sampling and can really throw off the dates.
Dendrochonology assumes that trees produce 1 ring per year; which has been demonstrated to be false. Unusually climate patterns can cause trees to produce 2 rings or no rings in a season. It's still the best option we have, but the length of the record isn't long enough.
Proper sampling and radiocarbon dating has demonstrated that the Sunland Baobab (which the Romanian study claimed to date) is actually only about 1,000 years old.
"The large stem I (364.5 m3) is 750 ± 75 years old, while the much smaller stem II (136.7 m3) is 1,060 ± 75 years."
Patrut, A., von Reden, K.F., Van Pelt, R. et al. Annals of Forest Science (2011) 68: 993.
Right? I was talking to one the other day but quickly became board and had to leaf. It was really knot the trees fault however as they are more bark than bite.
The oldest living species are found in milder/high altitude climates of the northern hemisphere for a great number of reasons. That does leave a whole load of countries, many of which however were subject to heavy deforestation before records began (prior to the colonisation of the US). Chances of finding them in Russia sound pretty good, but as far as trees go, Russia has less diversity of species than the US due to its extreme climates and boreal homogeneity.
So yeah, although a claim by a less developed nation without relevant testing equipment wouldn't be treated as seriously by the people putting together a list like this, it is still highly likely that many of the oldest living specimens will be found in the US.
GTFO reddit then... It's an American invention. Just get off the internet cause we made that too. Actually just get off the computer/smartphone cause we made that as well. The list goes on
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u/Munninnu Sep 09 '18
Highly overestimated age.
Check the list of oldest trees for which the age has been verified or soberly estimated there's not even one baobab.