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In Ancient Pines, a Startling Shift in Tree Rings

New York times: Some bristlecone pines on Wheeler Peak in Great Basin National Park in eastern Nevada. The renowned bristlecone Prometheus was felled there in 1964. Nearly 50 years have passed since a glaciologist by the name of Donald R. Currey got his tree-borer stuck in a remote Great Basin bristlecone pine (Pinus longaeva) about 10,750 feet up in the little-visited Humboldt National Forest of eastern Nevada. It would have been an unremarkable inconvenience had it not led to the death of what was shortly thereafter...