
A Forest Grew for Millennia in North America Without Anyone Noticing - curtis
http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/a-secret-forest-grew-for-millennia-in-north-america-without-anyone-noticing?
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MiguelVieira
Ancient forests like this are not too rare in the United States. You can find
a list of them here:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_old-
growth_forests#Uni...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_old-
growth_forests#United_States)

Disclosure: I compiled most of the list.

~~~
maxerickson
Hartwick Pines (one I'm familiar with) has an accessible asphalt trail through
it. It's not undiscovered.

It's also cheesy that the wiki list gives the size of the park reserve rather
than the size of the actual old growth stand. The full article gives the much
smaller size of 49 acres of remaining old growth forest rather than the 9,642
acres given in the list.

People estimate that the Michigan lumber boom was larger (in value extracted)
than the California gold rush. They cut down almost everything.

~~~
MiguelVieira
> It's also cheesy that the wiki list gives the size of the park reserve
> rather than the size of the actual old growth stand.

Probably an overzealous editor. I haven't checked the edit logs for that page
in years. Feel free to correct it.

~~~
maxerickson
Randomly spot checking (first click), the Cathedral Pines in CT also lists the
size of the preserve, even though the resources talk about the forest being
damaged by tornadoes. It's more problematic in that a number for the old
growth isn't obvious.

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nxzero
Reminds me of how one man accidentally killed the oldest tree ever:

[http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-one-man-
acciden...](http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-one-man-accidentally-
killed-the-oldest-tree-ever-125764872/)

Then of course there's this article, "Vintage Photos of Lumberjacks and the
Giant Trees They Felled"

[http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/vintage-photos-of-
lumbe...](http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/vintage-photos-of-lumberjacks-
and-the-giant-trees-they-felled)

~~~
pavel_lishin
One thing I never understood is, were there other trees around that one? Are
they also as old?

~~~
maxerickson
It's mentioned at the end of the link that an older tree has since been
recorded.

Note the photo and think about counting 5000 age rings on a pencil (roughly
the situation with a core) and I think it becomes clear that 'recorded' is an
important part of it.

~~~
xufi
Definitely. Thats how I I started recognizing the older trees from the
sequoias I believe which are one of the oldest species of trees out there.

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dzdt
Such old trees growing in marginal environments like the rocky cliffs are
valuable records of the past environment. Their annual growth is constrained
by twmperature and rainfall. By measuring the rings produced in past years, we
get information about the temperature and rainfall at those times. Since tree
rings are annual, this gives climate data resolved to exact past years. For
regions and times with no written records, this is one of the key sources to
reconstruct past climate details.

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mason240
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niagara_Escarpment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niagara_Escarpment)

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jdfellow
And then there's Pando, the largest known living organism, and it's at least
80,000 years old.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pando_(tree)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pando_\(tree\))

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chongli
How soon before word gets around and tons of people start climbing the cliffs
to see the trees? Hopefully we find a way to protect them before then.

~~~
soundwave106
Word _is_ around. From what I see, the information on the trees has apparently
been known for a decent amount of time. Per this:

[http://www.escarpment.org/_files/file.php?fileid=fileQZNQsAz...](http://www.escarpment.org/_files/file.php?fileid=fileQZNQsAzXRF&filename=file_2_kelly.pdf)

Research on this began in 1989, quite a long time ago. So there's been a lot
of awareness for a while. Most of the web pages on Niagara Escarpment nature
activities already mentions this old forest (one example is here:
[http://brucetrail.org/pages/about-us/the-niagara-
escarpment](http://brucetrail.org/pages/about-us/the-niagara-escarpment)).

However, you are right to worry -- apparently in this case the worry is that
this area gets a _lot_ of rock climbers, and there does seem to be a
significant concern about rock climbing's impact on the trees (and other
fauna). Yes, some actions are being done to protect them too. This article
goes into some of the detail.

[http://www.thespec.com/news-story/2249972-loving-it-to-
death...](http://www.thespec.com/news-story/2249972-loving-it-to-death/)

~~~
dragonwriter
> there does seem to be a significant concern about rock climbing's impact on
> the trees (and other fauna).

Nitpick, but trees are flora, not fauna, so that parenthetical should probably
be stated differently, perhas as either "(and other flora)" or "(and fauna)".

~~~
soundwave106
Hmm, maybe "(and other biota)" might be the best phrase.

One of the concerns was the impact on lichen for instance; I think lichen is
neither considered flora or fauna.

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wilblack
I love trees.

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grillvogel
hurry up we need to monetize this somehow

~~~
Ericson2314
haha

