Nature's fine art

[Jimr1961]

I spent a day hiking around in the Ancient Bristlecone Pine forest a couple of weeks ago. Bristlecone pine are the oldest living things on Earth. Living specimens have been dated back 4,700 years using tree ring bores. Surely, there are older ones there. Dead wood samples go back close to 10,000 years and rings overlap living specimens, meaning that the trees lived about 5,000 years before dying. When they overlap like that, there is a continuous tree ring history going back 9,800 years. This historic ring data is used to calibrate carbon 14 analysis and has been used to show that certain archaeological digs have been wrongly dated. For instance, it showed that Stonehenge was about 1,000 years older than previously thought. Fascinating, but the fine art left behind, to me, is breathtaking.

[Shadowman]

Nicely seen and captured.

[Ziggy]

This one would look nice on one of my walls, well done.

[LePetomane]

Jim, that is beautifully done.

[Jimr1961]

Thank you all. I took this just after a rain shower. It's amazing what happens to the wood when it's wet. I considered peeing on a few places to bring out the "luster" but held back. Next time, I'm bringing a spray bottle with me.

[marlunn]

Cheers Jim, I had known about these guys and strangly was telling my lady about them only a day or two ago - we are such gadflies aren't we ! fab image.