Do Tree Rings Prove an Old Earth?
Skeptics have argued that there are bristlecone pine trees alive today that are older in age than the date of the biblical Flood and even a Norway Spruce tree (“Old Tjikko”) whose assigned age is pre-Creation week.1 If so, these trees would have had to survive the Flood (estimated to have occurred roughly 4,300 years ago) and possibly even precede the Creation Week (estimated to have transpired 6,000-8,000 years ago)—a major problem for the biblical Creation model’s assertion that deep time is incorrect and the Universe is young. How do creationists respond to this challenge?
First, the oldest living bristlecone pine tree to date was announced in 2013 as being 5,062 years old (making it roughly 5,074 years old in 2025).2 However, notably, its location is being kept secret (allegedly somewhere in California’s White Mountains3) and its age has not been able to be confirmed by other scientists.4 The second oldest tree is also a bristlecone pine, nicknamed “Methuselah,” and is thought to be roughly 4,850 years old.5 The tree nicknamed “Prometheus” or the “Currey Tree” (HPN-114) was chopped down in 1964 by Donald Currey and was found to be 4,844 years old at the time, based on assessment of its tree rings,6 presumably making its germination date over 4,900 years ago. Do these trees disprove the biblical timeline?7
Sub-annual Tree Rings?
To answer that question, one must first understand some basic information about dendrochronology. Dendrochronology is the science of studying tree rings, assessing their ages as well as climates in the past. Tree ring counting is considered to be a very reliable science for dating wood since, today, one ring is generally known to form in a tree for every year that the tree has lived. However, when sub-annual tree ring growth occurs (i.e., more than one ring forming each year—called “false rings”8 or “intra-annual” rings), the ages of trees will be inflated and, thus, erroneous.9 Sub-annual tree ring growth is now understood by dendrochronologists to be common, especially in dry climate trees (like bristlecone pines).10 In fact, “in some trees of certain regions and in some years…the intra-annuals actually outnumber the annuals.”11 Based upon their study of some 67 trees from 25 species, they found that well over 63% of the trees revealed sub-annual tree ring growth.12 In fact, they revealed that in their “work, something like 99 percent of extremely thin, entire growth layers and lenses are intra-annual. The effect upon chronology of counting these thin, entire growth layers and lenses as true annual increments is quite obvious.”13 Sub-annual tree ring growth is not merely a strange, sporadic exception to the rule—it is quite common.
Sub-annual rings may, in fact, be even more common than is currently realized due to the inability to distinguish between annual and sub-annual rings in many cases. Years ago, writing in the Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, Glock, Studhalter, and Agerter explained that “a ‘false’ (intra-annual) ring might so closely approach the sharpness of a tree annual as to give a high degree of uncertainty in identification,” requiring crossdating to attempt to decipher the “true” age of the tree.14 They highlight that after years of study, they “failed to reveal any criteria by which” one could distinguish annual from sub-annual tree layers.15 In apparent exasperation, they exclaim when trying to distinguish sub-annuals in many cases, “how can one be certain of his interpretations?”16 “In fact, the whole of our work emphasizes the impossibility of distinguishing a sharp intra-annual from an equally sharp annual.”17
Notably, the understood cause of intra-annual tree rings is often unusual weather.18 Glock, et al. explain, “the nature of the growth layer, whether annual or intra-annual, depends upon the variations in the impact of growth factors, variations which may or may not be annual, and which may or may not be sufficiently intense to make either annual or intra-annual growth layers indistinguishable, one from the other.”19 “Certain species and certain years show extreme numbers of intra-annuals whereas others show only a few. In some species, it is impossible to find a year lacking multiple growth layers. The reason for such multiplicity has commonly been held to be large and repeated fluctuations of soil moisture.”20 In fact, Mirov acknowledged that in the pines of the White Mountains (where the bristlecones are found), “a semblance of annual rings is formed after every rather infrequent cloudburst.”21 Ricker, et al. explain that “intra-annual” rings are “caused by stressful climatic periods (for example, lack of soil moisture) that divide an annual tree-ring artificially into at least two.”22 They also highlight that, “Without crossdating or information on intra-annual climate variability, it may not be possible to distinguish annual and false boundaries.”23
While the work of the late dendrochronologists Valmore LaMarche and Thomas Harlan of the University of Arizona’s Laboratory of Tree-ring Research24 has prompted some to reject sub-annual tree ring growth as a possibility for bristlecone pines, not all scientists accept their conclusion. Gladwin believed that bristlecone pine tree growth patterns are too erratic for dating at all,25 and based on finding extra rings when studying bristlecone tree saplings, Lammerts argued that the bristlecone chronology could be lowered by at least 1,500 years.26 While it has been argued that statistical methods are available to help eliminate the human interpretation element from the equation, the statistical methods are still recommended more as port for human visual analysis, rather than replacement of human confirmation.27 Notably, LaMarche and Harlan’s study attempted to substantiate the assertion that the rings of the bristlecone pines are annual (i.e., not sub-annual) rings, coupling the tree ring chronology with radiocarbon dating. However, (1) creationists have shown that radiocarbon dating is unreliable at best,28 (2) evidence suggests that nuclear decay rates were significantly accelerated in the past (apparently due to the Flood and God’s activity during Creation week),29 making ancient trees date as older than they really are, and (3) the acceleration is believed to have continued until roughly 1500-2000 B.C. Radiocarbon dates prior to those dates, therefore, should be “telescoped,” increasing the number of tree rings in a “radiocarbon year.”
Bottom line: sub-annual tree ring growth is not uncommon, and the typical cause of such growth would be conditions that would have been necessitated by the post-Flood Ice Age. The biblical Creation model argues that, due to the Flood,30 the post-Flood ocean would have been much warmer, and the atmosphere would have had elevated volcanic aerosols, cloud cover, and precipitation for several decades (and possibly a few centuries), leading to an Ice “Age”31 with unusual cyclical weather patterns. The conditions were ideal for sub-annual tree ring growth. In the words of Creation scientist John Morris:
As it pertains to Flood model considerations, remember that the centuries immediately following the Flood witnessed the coming of the Ice Age. All trees growing on the continents were recently sprouted, actively growing trees. The still-warm oceans rapidly evaporated seawater, thus providing the raw material for major monsoonal-type storms. Earth was ravaged by frequent and wide-ranging atmospheric disturbances, dumping excessive snowfall in northern regions and rainfall to the south. If ever there was a time when multiple rings could develop in trees, this was it. Those centuries probably produced tree ring growth that was anything but annual. Thus, far from disproving biblical history, tree ring studies provide supportive and instructive information about true history.32
Tree ring counting cannot be used as proof that the Earth is older than biblical claims. Many of the tree rings in the oldest living trees may have formed sub-annually. But even if every tree ring was, in fact, an annual ring, a tree that is over 5,000 years old would still fall below some Flood date estimates, which can be as high as 3,000-4,000 B.C., based upon the implications of Moses’ wording in the Genesis 11 genealogies.33
Tree Rings and Crossdating
That said, while old-Earth advocates assert that there are living trees with over 5,000 tree rings, perhaps few people realize that the oldest trees—namely, the bristlecone pines discussed above—were actually not dated solely using tree ring counting but, instead, “crossdating.” Crossdating is the process of successively overlapping the tree ring patterns from living and dead trees (including fossilized trees and even beams from old houses) further back in history. Some scientists, however, have rightly argued that “[i]t is thus evident that the ‘art’ of cross-matching of tree-rings as thin as a thousandth of an inch or less is very subjective because of being dependent on the visual assessment of the investigator.”34 After all, trees growing in the same forest will not always display the same tree ring patterns.35 The renowned expert in dendrochronology, M.G.L. Baillie, warned:
As with conventional jig-saws, some people are better at pattern recognition than others and, if the analogy is not too brutal, there are those who recognise the problems, and those who might try to force the pieces together. It has to be remembered that there is only one correct pattern: each tree has grown only once and ultimately its ring pattern can only fit at one place in time. Simply because two pieces look alike does not necessarily mean that they fit together.36
The Survival of Pre-flood Trees?
Crossdating is an imprecise and often subjective method to be sure, yet it is incorrectly argued that this process can create a chronology reaching back over 8,000 years.37 In response, besides the above issue with crossdating, first we must understand that only living trees would potentially create a problem for the Creation/Flood model, and then, only if one assumes that all trees died in the Flood, which may not have been the case.38 The biblical text only says that “all flesh died that moved on the Earth” (Genesis 7:21), but plants are not flesh. In the case of trees, many would have been torn up by Flood processes and carried great distances (in some cases with their root systems still intact). After the Mount St. Helens eruption in 1980,39 trees from the surrounding area were torn down or uprooted by debris flows and transported to Spirit Lake, to be deposited as a giant floating log mat. Some of the trees still had their root ball intact. Thus, over the coming days and weeks, their saturated root ball sank, pulling the trees below the water, only to be “replanted” at the base of Spirit Lake below water. If uprooted pre-Flood trees with their root systems intact had been “replanted” late in the Flood and soon thereafter been uncovered as the waters of the Earth receded (unlike the trees of Mount St. Helens, which are still on and below Spirit Lake), could those trees have survived?
First, keep in mind that all pre-Flood era living species would be expected to be more robust than modern species, since less genetic mutation would have accumulated in their genomes, being much closer in time to Creation. Also, Bert Cregg of the Department of Horticulture and Forestry at Michigan State University noted that even today (after thousands of years of further genetic entropy), “[m]any tree species can survive months under water” in floods.40 Whitlow and Harris’ monumental work on the effect of flooding on trees revealed dozens of species that are tolerant (i.e., able to survive deep flooding for one growing season) and/or very tolerant to flooding (i.e., able to survive deep, prolonged flooding for more than one year).41 If some trees survived the Flood, then living trees with 6,000 or more rings would not be a problem for the Flood model.42 [NOTE: It is also possible that Noah brought trees on the Ark (especially those that would provide food for its passengers—Genesis 6:21).]
A “Mature” Creation
So, there are no living trees that can be known to be older than when the Flood occurred. The oldest bristlecone pine trees could very well be trees that began to grow immediately after the Flood. But even if cross dating reliably revealed a tree history with thousands upon thousands of tree rings—enough to cause one to question a recent Creation (i.e., six-to-eight thousand years ago)—we must recognize the fact that the biblical model calls for the supernatural creation of fully functional, mature trees from the first day of their existence (so that Adam and Eve, also fully grown, would be able to eat from them, Genesis 2:16-17). Those trees, no doubt, would have been equipped with tree rings since rings help provide strength for mature trees.43 The likelihood of sub-annual tree ring growth in unusual weather like that of the post-Flood Ice Age and a supernaturally created mature Earth dispense with tree ring arguments against a young Earth.
Tree Ages and Carbon Dating
What about “Old Tjikko,” which is estimated by some to be at least 9,500 years old? Old Tjikko was dated using carbon dating, not dendrochronology, and therefore tends not even to be listed among the verified oldest trees.44 In the words of Peter Brown, Director and President of Rocky Mountain Tree-Ring Research,
There has been a lot of focus on [sic] in the media recently about very old trees that are based on radiocarbon dating of a remnant piece of wood in association with a currently living tree that is assumed to have been an ancient stem that reproduced clonally. The most recent example is “Old Tjikko,” a Norway spruce (Picea abies) growing in Sweden. The living stem itself is only a few hundred years old, but there is a radiocarbon age of 9,500 years from dead wood present at its base. The living tree is argued to be only the most recent ramet of the much older individual tree genet. However, a 2016 study by G.L. Mackenthun instead argues that there is no evidence of genetic continuity between the dead and living wood portions of the tree, nor is there any evidence of clonal origination of Norway spruce in general. Thus, in the absence of any evidence of genetic continuity between dead and living portions of a stem, especially from a species otherwise not known to commonly reproduce clonally, I do not include such trees in Oldlist.45
Even beyond the issues listed above concerning radiocarbon dating, the method is a notoriously imprecise and suspect method due to its frequent anomalies, largely caused by its long-believed, foundational assumption that the ratio of 14C to 12C in the atmosphere has remained constant throughout history, as well as the effect of the Earth’s magnetic field on the production rate of 14C.46 Scientists now know that the ratio is not constant.47 So, they attempt to calibrate the 14C “clock” using other techniques that are largely ineffective beyond recorded history. Archaeologists today, therefore, cannot use 14C dating as conclusive evidence in dating ancient objects because of such anomalies. So much so that evolutionists admit concerning carbon dating, “[I]t is not infallible. In general, single dates should not be trusted.”48
Conclusion
As has been the case thousands of times throughout history, skeptics and scoffers will continue to try to chip away at the reliability of Scripture and its record of historical events. When a thorough investigation of their argument is completed, however, the Bible always stands unscathed. The latest charge against its accuracy inevitably collapses upon closer examination. And so it is in regard to tree rings allegedly casting doubt on the legitimacy of the Flood and the young age of the Earth implied by the biblical genealogies.
Endnotes
1 Bill Nye and Ken Ham (2014), Uncensored Science: Bill Nye Debates Ken Ham (Petersburg, KY: Answers in Genesis).
2 Joseph Castro (2013), “What is the Oldest Tree in the World?” Live Science, http://www.livescience.com/29152-oldest-tree-in-world.html.
3 “Pinus Longaeva” (2023), The Gymnosperm Database, ed. Christopher J. Earle, April 10, https://www.conifers.org/pi/Pinus_longaeva.php.
4 Peter Brown (no date), “OLDLIST, A Database Of Old Trees,” Rocky Mountain Tree-Ring Research, accessed 11/26/24, https://www.rmtrr.org/oldlist.htm.
5 Ibid.
6 Matthew Salzer and Christopher Baisan (2013), “Dendrochronology of the ‘Currey Tree,’” Second American Dendrochronology Conference, University of Arizona, Tucson, May 13-17, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/333058921_Dendrochronology_of_the_Currey_Tree.
7 Note that other trees are claimed to be extremely old as well, though unverified by dendrochronological examination (e.g., according to folklore, the Lebanese olive trees known as “The Sisters” are said to be the “source of that olive branch brought by the dove back to Noah heralding the end of the flood” [Tara Vassiliou (2012), “Epic Olive Trees,” Olive Oil Times On-line, June 10, https://www.oliveoiltimes.com/world/epic-olive-trees/26998].
8 Brown.
9 Ibid.
10 W.S. Glock, R.A. Studhalter, and S.R. Agerter (1960), “Classification and Multiplicity of Growth Patterns in the Branches of Trees,” Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, 140[1]:1-292.
11 Ibid., pp. 56-57, emp. added.
12 Ibid., pp. 121-122; see also Martin Ricker, et al. (2020), “Statistical Age Determination of Tree Rings,” PLOS One, 15[9], September 22, https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0239052, who found 313 false rings in 29 Pinus oocarpa trees out of 1861 rings.
13 Glock, et al., p. 274, emp. added.
14 Ibid., p. 39, emp. added.
15 Ibid.
16 Ibid., p. 53.
17 Ibid., p. 57, emp. added.
18 E.g., Gerald E. Aardsma (1993), “Tree-Rings Dating and Multiple Growth Ring Per Year,” Creation Research Society Quarterly, 29:184-189, March; Walter E. Lammerts (1983), “Are the Bristlecone Pine Trees Really So Old?” Creation Research Society Quarterly, 20:108-115, September; Defoliation by insects and periodic infestations have also been shown to affect tree ring patterns—Friedrich, et al. (2004), “The 12,460-year Hohenheim Oak and Pine Tree-Ring Chronology From Central Europe—A Unique Annual Record of Radiocarbon Calibration and Paleoenvironment Reconstructions,” Radiocarbon, 46[3]:1111-1122, November.
19 Glock, et al., p. 257, emp. added.
20 Ibid., p. 273, emp. added.
21 N.T. Mirov (1967), The Genus Pinus (New York: Ronald Press Co.), p. 146, emp. added.
22 Ricker, et al, emp. added.
23 Ibid.
24 V.C. LaMarche, Jr. and T.P. Harlan (1973), “Accuracy of Tree Ring Dating of Bristlecone Pine For Calibration of the Radiocarbon Time Scale,” Journal of Geophysical Research, 78:8849-8858.
25 Harold S. Gladwin (1978), “Dendrochronology, Radiocarbon, and Bristlecones,” Creation Research Society Quarterly, 15:24-26, June.
26 Walter E. Lammerts (1983), “Are the Bristlecone Pine Trees Really So Old?” Creation Research Society Quarterly, 20:108-115, September.
27 Jake Hebert, Andrew Snelling, and Timothy Clarey (2016), “Do Varves, Tree-Rings, and Radiocarbon Measurements Prove an Old Earth? Refuting a Popular Argument by Old-Earth Geologists Gregg Davidson and Ken Wolgemuth,” Answers Research Journal, 9:349, https://assets.answersresearchjournal.org/doc/v9/varves_tree-rings_old_earth.pdf.
28 Michael G. Houts (2015), “Assumptions and the Age of the Earth,” Reason & Revelation, 35[3]:26-34, March, https://apologeticspress.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/1503w.pdf.
29 Don DeYoung (2005), Thousands…Not Billions (Green Forest, AR: Master Books); Elizabeth Gardner (2010), “Purdue-Stanford Team Finds Radioactive Decay Rates Vary With the Sun’s Rotation,” Purdue University News Service, http://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/research/2010/100830FischbachJenkinsDec.html; Steve Reucroft and J. Swain (2009), “Ultrasonic Cavitation of Water Speeds Up Thorium Decay,” CERN Courier, June 8, http://cerncourier.com/cws/article/cern/39158.
30 Jeff Miller (2019), “Was the Flood Global? Testimony from Scripture and Science,” Reason & Revelation, 39[4]:38-47, April, https://apologeticspress.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/1904w.pdf.
31 Michael Oard (2006), Frozen in Time (Green Forest, AR: Master Books).
32 J. Morris (2012), “Tree Ring Dating,” Acts & Facts, 41[10]:15.
33 Eric Lyons (2002), “When Did Terah Beget Abraham?” Apologetics Press, https://apologeticspress.org/when-did-terah-beget-abraham-624/.
34 Hebert, et al., p. 349, emp. added.
35 David K. Yamaguchi (1986), “Interpretation of Cross-Correlation Between Tree-Ring Series,” Tree-Ring Bulletin, 46:47-54, https://repository.arizona.edu/bitstream/handle/10150/261724/trb-46-047-054.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y.
36 M.G.L. Baillie (1982), Tree-Ring Dating and Archaeology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press), p. 23.
37 C.W. Ferguson and D.A. Graybill (1985), “Dendrochronology of Bristlecone Pine,” Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research Final Technical Report, University of Arizona at Tucson, https://arizona.openrepository.com/arizona/bitstream/10150/246033/1/ltrr-0019.pdf.
38 David Wright (2012), “How Did Plants Survive the Flood?” Answers in Genesis, http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/aid/v7/n1/how-did-plants-survive-flood.
39 John Morris and Steven A. Austin (2003), Footprints in the Ash (Green Forest, AR: Master Books), pp. 96-103.
40 Bert Cregg (2011), “Flood-Tolerant Trees,” Michigan State University: Extension, http://msue.anr.msu.edu/news/flood_tolerant_trees.
41 Thomas H. Whitlow and Richard W. Harris (1979), Flood Tolerance in Plants: A State-of-the-Art Review, Environmental & Water Quality Operational Studies Technical Report, pp. 68-129; see also: “9 Trees that Can Survive Flooding” (2019), Arbor Day Foundation, July 17, https://www.arborday.org/perspectives/9-trees-can-survive-flooding.
42 Would saltwater have killed any floating trees? Note that (1) the pre-Flood ocean likely had less salinity than present levels, and (2) many tree species are salt-tolerant today, including various species of pine (and many more could have been more salt-tolerant at the time of the Flood which have since either digressed due to genetic entropy or become more adapted to the present salinity level of their ecosystem). See: “Salt Tolerant Evergreen Trees (By Zone)” (2022), Davey: Proven Solutions for a Growing World, February 14, https://blog.davey.com/salt-tolerant-evergreen-trees-by-zone/; Yasmin Zinni (2022), “Trees That Grow in Saltwater,” Sciencing, March 24, https://www.sciencing.com/trees-that-grow-in-saltwater-13429031/; Jon M. (2024), “Salt Tolerant Trees (10 Trees That Can Tolerate Salt),” GreenUpside, Galois Digital Assets, https://greenupside.com/salt-tolerant-trees-10-trees-that-can-tolerate-salt/; Ahsen Soomro (n.d.), “7 Common Saltwater Trees that Thrive in the United States,” Environment Buddy, https://www.environmentbuddy.com/plants-and-trees/saltwater-trees/;
43 Jeff Miller (2011), “Did the Trees of the Garden of Eden Have Rings?” Reason & Revelation, 31[11]:116, https://apologeticspress.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/1111web.pdf.
44 Brown.
45 Ibid.
46 Houts.
47 George H. Michaels and Brian Fagan (2003), “Chronological Methods 8—Radiocarbon Dating,” University of California Santa Barbara Instructional Development, https://stsmith.faculty.anth.ucsb.edu/classes/anth3/courseware/Chronology/08_Radiocarbon_Dating.html.
48 Ibid.
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