50,000 Year Old Trees: Growing Ancient Spruce Seedlings

Spruce pine cones dating back 50,000 years and found in a grayish clay wall at a beach on Bodega Head may be used to sprout a new tree.

It may sound a bit like "Jurassic Park," but getting ancient seeds to germinate isn't without precedent, and the resulting plants aren't easily distinguished from their modern cousins.

Still, if state archaeologist Breck Parkman succeeds with the spruce pine cones from Bodega Head, the seeds will be the oldest known to be germinated.

"If I had to guess, I'd say I have a 20 percent chance, and that is based on the preserving quality of the clay," Parkman said.

Some scientists have had great success with similar efforts.

Jane Shen-Miller of UCLA has an 88 percent success rate in growing new lotus plants from seeds from 400 to 1,300 years old.

"I have sprouted 12, and they are precious," Shen-Miller said. "These are from an old, dry lake bed in former Manchuria. The lake was dried up by an earthquake and farmers now use the dry land to farm."

The oldest known seed germinated was from a lupine and was found in permafrost in Alaska, said Stephen Edwards, director of the herbarium at Tilden Park in Oakland. Its age was determined to be 10,000 years.

Edwards, however, gives Parkman little chance of success because the seeds have been in wet clay.

"Water is your enemy," Edwards said. "Either immobilize the water by freezing it or keep the seed in a dry condition. I think Parkman's chance to germinate them is zero. But I would love to be proven wrong."

If the seeds do sprout, state ecologist Brendan O'Neil said the resulting tree should be no different than trees that are growing today. In 50,000 years, only the pattern of forests has changed.

"It is intriguing," O'Neil said. Although he is skeptical about sprouting the seeds, "it gets people interested and it gives people a glimpse of the dynamic planet we live on."

The spruce pine cones were found in April by Parkman in a damp blue clay wall next to a trail leading down from the Bodega Head parking lot to a small, protected beach that was being excavated in preparation of a storm.

Parkman said they have been monitoring the clay walls for three years as erosion from waves, high tides and storms exposed a tree that has been radiocarbon-dated to 50,000 years by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

The site is one of three on Bodega Head within a half square mile in which such fossilized trees, spruce pine cones and a Monterey pine cone have been found and radiocarbon-dated to that age.

O'Neil said the area is most likely an old river or creek bed and the logs, which are aligned in a northeast direction, may have washed downstream.

Although the ancient stream bed is full of sediment today, water still trickles from its base at the beach from drainage and what may be an underground spring.

Clearly visible in the gray clay are black chunks of what looks like charcoal, but are actually the root wad of the fossilized tree lodged in the bank.

Parkman said a dozen spruce cones will be put into a spin kiln to separate the seeds before he can try to germinate them, and he will be looking in the clay bank for more cones and seeds.

Parkman said he isn't sure how to go about germinating the seeds, and will be looking for help from other scientists.

Shen-Miller scratches the coating of her old seeds before immersing them in a garbage can full of purified water.

Other scientists recommend putting the seeds into a refrigerator for three months to simulate winter, then take them out to warm up for planting.

But Parkman said regardless of what happens with the seeds, the project is already successful because of what they are learning.

"It doesn't matter whether we germinate the seeds, it's the process," Parkman said.