The Alerce Milenario is only a candidate for the oldest tree. The verified oldest is a bristlecone pine. Trees like Giant Sequoia and Alerce grow both tall and wide, some others stay low to the ground but have massive trunk widths. Bristlecone pines do not grow that wide, they are more modest in size. This means that in the smaller trees complete cores can be taken. In the case of the Alerce Milenario, it's been commonly said that standard corers cannot reach the tree's centre so computer simulations were needed to extrapolate the age of the tree. But why not just make a longer corer? Why wouldn't that work? I haven't found any explanation for this.
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It sounds like the centre of the tree is rotten so you can't get a meaningful complete core. – bob1 Aug 13 '23 at 07:10
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The dead wood is filled with tannins so it will not rot easily. – TitaniumVCarbon Aug 13 '23 at 22:05
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Rest assured that it will rot - otherwise the forest floor would be totally covered in branches and dead trunks would be standing everywhere. It's also possible that hitting the exact core is difficult, not because of length, but not knowing where it is exactly - trees don't grow as perfect cylinders, they shape themselves to dominant wind direction, ground slope etc. Cores also are fragile - they can break, and getting the rest out can be difficult. Without knowing the exact problem from the (unpublished) study in question, we can only make guesses as to the problem. – bob1 Aug 13 '23 at 23:02