The drill that could not come back out
In 1964, researcher Donald Currey was studying ancient bristlecone pines on Nevada’s Wheeler Peak. To date a living tree, scientists commonly use an increment borer: a hollow drill that removes a narrow wood sample while leaving most of the trunk intact. The sample’s alternating light and dark bands reveal annual growth rings.
Currey’s borer became stuck in a tree he was examining. With the tool trapped inside, he could not get the sample he needed by the usual method. The tree was then cut down so its trunk could be examined directly. The decision turned a difficult field problem into a permanent loss: a tree that had survived for millennia was no longer standing.
What the trunk revealed
Once the tree was felled, its rings could be counted across a much larger section than a small core would have provided. The count showed that it was nearly 5,000 years old. It was later named Prometheus.
That age made the tree an extraordinary record of past climate. Bristlecone pines grow slowly in harsh, high-altitude conditions, and their annual rings preserve evidence of year-to-year changes in growth. Prometheus’s trunk therefore offered more than a remarkable age: it held a long sequence that researchers could compare with other tree-ring records.
A scientific gain with an irreversible cost
The episode illustrates a practical tension in field research. A core sample can answer questions while leaving a tree alive, but a stuck tool or inadequate sample can force a harder choice. Cutting Prometheus made its rings available for study, yet no later measurement could restore the living tree.
Its loss also changed how people thought about protecting ancient bristlecone pines. Prometheus is remembered not only for how long it grew, but for the fact that one failed attempt to take a small sample ended with its entire trunk on the ground.
