NATIONAL NEWS - The world-famous Sunland Baobab in Modjadjiskloof saw a third of its trunk crash to the ground.
The owners, Heather and her husband, Doug van Heerden state that they intend to leave the trunk section exactly where it fell, allowing nature to take its course in reshaping and assimilating the feature.
In 2009, a task team from the Department of Chemistry, Babes-Bolyai University of Romania, funded by a grant from the Romanian National University Resaearch Council and the US National Science Foundation,
estimated the age of the Big Baobab (the Sunland Baobab) to be around 6 000 years.
Due to the location of the Sunland Baobab, the lack of documentation relating to the area, and the varying growth speeds of baobabs, the size–age relation cannot be used for estimating accurately the age of African baobabs.
For large trees without a continuous sequence of growth rings in their trunk, such as the African baobab (Adansonia digitata L.), the only accurate method for age determination is radiocarbon dating.
However, this method was limited to dating samples collected from the remains of dead specimens. Collecting from a live specimen was a new challenge and led to inaccuracy in results.
In 2009, a task team from the Department of Chemistry, Babes-Bolyai University of Romania, funded by a grant from the Romanian National University Resaearch Council and the US National Science Foundation,
estimated the age of the Big Baobab (the Sunland Baobab) to be around 6 000 years.
Due to the location of the Sunland Baobab, the lack of documentation relating to the area, and the varying growth speeds of baobabs, the size–age relation cannot be used for estimating accurately the age of African baobabs.
For large trees without a continuous sequence of growth rings in their trunk, such as the African baobab (Adansonia digitata L.), the only accurate method for age determination is radiocarbon dating.
However, this method was limited to dating samples collected from the remains of dead specimens. Collecting from a live specimen was a new challenge and led to inaccuracy in results.
