It was morning and we were somewhere just east of Mojave, on the road heading east. Soon the hot Owens Valley was laid before us and soon we were gaining elevation and into the White Mountains, on the road east of Big Pine and through desolate scrub foothills, and then through an immensity of Pinon and Juniper woodlands. Lily was at the console, keeping the truck's engine heat between medium and high. Keeping the truck from overheating is a game on this heated incline.
We pulled air from the engine to regulate the temperature as we took on narrow and steep grades to a height somewhere above eleven thousand feet. The vegetation thinned, the skies darkened with clouds, and the gnarled high-altitude limber pines were hanging over the road. White dolomite shards covered the high slopes of these mountains, and thus, the name 'White Mountains.'
It was a J.R.R. Tolkien landscape and I remembered this passage:
"The world is gray, the mountains old, The forges fire is ashen-cold."
At the high tundra peaks, twisted pines shot up from the steep dolomite cliffs. Many of these bristlecone pines were brewing sap long before Abraham emerged from the wilderness. They are witch trees - leathered from millennia, worn, tattered and distant. They persist only here and other far reaches of the Great Basin, at the brink of death. These trees, and in particular the anonymous 4,800 year old Methuselah, may be the oldest living organisms on Earth.
"The old that is strong does not wither Deep roots are not reached by frost"
Here, on the border of Nevada and near the summit of the highest of the White Mountains and the third highest peak in California, is one of the driest regions on Earth.
It is harsh weather, especially considering that any precipitation is likely snow or ice. Deserts are defined not by heat but by a low presence of water. And so, we are standing on the western edge of the Great Basin Desert, the largest in the Western Hemisphere. These bristlecone pines survive best when devoid of moist soil, insects, or warmth. Some of the dead tree carcasses date back 10,000 years. The tree's ability to persist in such conditions is hard to grasp; the length of their lives is even more so.
Sometimes, people will say that the bristlecone pine is the oldest living organism on Earth. They are so old, that dendrologists were able to use their carbon interiors to make adjustments to our radio-carbon dating sciences.
But what really is the oldest living thing on Earth?
Lots of different people have lots of different answers for this question. It's interesting to note that a lot of these questions can be answered within a hundred miles from these White Mountains. The world's largest organism, a Giant Sequoia, lies just beyond view to the west of here. The world's tallest trees, most of them lie just northwest of here. And just southwest of here, in the heart of the Mojave Desert lies a simple bush, a creosote bush, which some people say is unquestionably the longest-living organism out there.
This plant is widespread throughout North America's desert. It is spindly and its leaves are a peculiar lime-brown. Individual plants of this species can live about two-hundred years, but the plant has a method of reproducing itself by producing new root systems and springing new plants from the same genetic material.
If this act can be measured as a single life, then the oldest Creosote Bush is almost 12,000 years old. The science to determine that, was guided by the dendrological radio-carbon technology discovered by measuring the bristlecone pine.
Twelve thousand years is old. But what about two-hundred and fifty million years? In Southeast New Mexico, scientists found bacterial microbes in a cave deep under the desert surface.
The bacteria were found in suspended animation in crystals of salt. When scientists applied nutrients to them, they revived themselves and: Boom! Two hundred and fifty million year old life.
Still, we look at the bristlecone as the oldest continuously-living single organism.
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