I agree, I was also disappointed.

Meanwhile the oldest known living tree is a still astonishing 4,800 years old

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methuselah_(tree)

When I went there I asked a ranger if there was something special about bristlecone pines that allows them to live for so long. She first told me what it means for a tree to be alive. Apparently, as long as there is a connection from root, through bark, to leaves, it's still alive. So a lot of bark could be missing, but if there is a path it's good.

For the longevity, it's just the perfect environment in the White Mountains. Trees don't die of old age. Pests, disease, and erosion are what kill them. That area, being California high desert, there just aren't really any pests or disease. Erosion and weather are the biggest threat to the trees.

That place is totally cool, in that I really like it but don't think anyone I'd drag up there would enjoy it as much, ha.

If you like Bristlecone Pines, I highly, highly recommend checking out Great Basin National Park and hiking up to the Bristlecone Pine Grove. It's a lovely day hike - I did it over Thanksgiving weekend and used those little snowtrax grippers over my hiking shoes.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/the-bristlecone-pines-of...

Could be done around now-ish in snowshoes as well.

One of the least visited and most beautiful national parks in the US! Sparkling stars and dark skies make for great meteor viewing, and the bristlecone pine trail has a loop through all the interesting trees with little signs and "biographies" about each tree.

One of the largest is Prometheus: https://www.nps.gov/grba/learn/historyculture/the-prometheus...

The root system of clonal colony 'Pando' (in Utah), still alive (barely,thanks to us), dates to 80,000 ya.

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

There is unlikely to be any alive material that is that old though

Not on the individual cell level. Human cells last days to months ... continually replaced by division. Over time all of our cells are replaced. I guess all other cellular organisms are like that.

Question of definition whether clones are the 'same individual organism'.

More details here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_longest-living_organis...

Then there's this possibly immortal jellyfish.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turritopsis_dohrnii

Yes, from that aspect it is a bit like claiming this oil reserve is the oldest ancient forest. Which is fascinating as before microbes that could break down lignin came about, tree's would not decompose. Tree's themselves came about when plants developed lignin and enabled a strong bark stem and to grow taller, fighting for the light resource. But there was no microbes to break down lignin, which is in wood. So trunks piled up until evolution saw a microbe that could and it thrived as it does today. Though before then, tree trunks would pile up and it is those piles that became buried and with that, cut of from the microbes that would break them down. It is from that window in Earth's history that was behind the coal and oil today.

Still, a discernible root is a level of identification you will never get from any oil reserves.

Coal however, well: https://www.uky.edu/KGS/fossils/fossil-tree-stumps-types.php - which is also around the same period in time. Not sure what to make of that.

I think there is more to it than all tree not decomposing due to lack of lignin digesting fungus. From what I've read the trees had to have fallen in an area of freshwater only it could not be saltwater or it would rot.

Then again I'm no coal-ologist.

Yes, there are many factors at play environmentally beyond a lignin digesting fungus. Just the whole timeline and that aspect that makes one tree a fossil and another a fossil-fuel, is fascinating and the aspect that there seems like a cross-over period in which some trees of a time became coal and others became other forms of rock (yes coal is a rock, covering myself in case of any lurking coal-ologists :).

Though trees in saltwater do not rot faster, kinda the opposite as the salt acts as a preserve. https://www.express.co.uk/news/nature/460976/6-000-year-old-...

Makes you wonder what the planet did look like and maybe one day we will be able to work out were land masses and at what height and climate, that with coal and oil fields, see a picture of the forests that made that coal and oil. Though a quick google didn't jump out anything close.

I wonder what's the oldest city or oldest civilization than and how old would be that.