The world’s oldest tree, a 9,500-year-old Norwegian Spruce named “Old Tjikko,” after Professor Leif Kullman’s Siberian husky, continues to grow in Sweden. Discovered in 2004 by Kullman, professor of Physical Geography at Umeå University, the age of the tree was determined using carbon-14 dating.
“During the ice age sea level was 120 meters lower than today and much of what is now the North Sea in the waters between England and Norway was at that time forest,” Professor Kullman told Aftonbladet. Winds and ɩow temperatures made Old Tjikko “like a bonsai tree…Big trees cannot get as old as this.”
More info: National Geographic (h/t: mymodernmet, aftonbladet)
Image credits: Leif Kullman
Image credits: Carkrull
Image credits: Patrik Qvist
Image credits: IBL/Rex Features
