Dear Readers,

I usually reserve this space for talking about the Oldest Living Things themselves, and for my related travel (mis)adventures, but I have so much good news to share about the project I wanted to keep you updated!

(This information was sent out to my mailing list last week. Feel free to sign yourself up here.)


 

Success! A heartfelt thanks to everyone who donated artwork, services, encouragement and pledged their support to my work!

 

I'm humbled and honored to announce that I've been invited to speak about my work at TEDGlobal next month in Oxford, UK. If you haven't heard any TED talks yet, explore their site. You're sure to come away inspired.

Check out the WSJ for an article entitled "Earth's Real Senior Citizens," written by Julie Steinberg, who came out to my studio for an interview last week.

 

 

I'm thrilled to announce that I've been nominated for the Prix Pictet for the second year in a row. This year I was nominated by Elie Domit, Director of the Dubai-based gallery The Empty Quarter. Elie has also invited me to exhibit in the gallery in 2011.

 

Ian Sample, science correspondent for the Guardian wrote a wonderful profile on my project last month, which ran in The Observer along with a two-page spread of my images.

 

A little later in the year I'll be giving a talk at The Long Now Foundation as part of their series of seminars on long term thinking in November (Details TBA.)  In the mean time, check out their brilliant 10,000-year clock. 

 

Weren't able to see my GEL talk in person? It's now available online on the GEL site. While you're there check out great talks by Sal Khan, Randy Garutti, Rob Kapilow and others. Thinking about attending GEL 2011? I highly recommend it.

 

HELP SUPPORT OLTW on KICKSTARTER!

Hello dear readers! 

As you can imagine, searching out the world's oldest living things is no cheap undertaking. That's why I've started a fundraising campaign on Kickstarter.com to try to raise some money to continue with my work. Have $5 to donate? Every contribution helps, and there are some great rewards for pledging.  I have until June 20th to reach my $10,000 goal - please help me get there, so I in turn can get to places like Antarctica, Tasmania and Sri Lanka. 

Just click below for more information, and please pass this along to anyone else you think might be interested. Thank you for your support!

BRAIN CORAL REDUX

2000-year-old Brain Coral, Speyside, Tobago

NEW MOON
When I last checked in, it was about mid-way through my stay in Tobago. It was raining at least part of every day, windy (much like Brooklyn this morning), and the waters were dense with suspended particles. Speaking of the moon-like qualities of the coral in my last posting, I learned an important lesson in dive planning a little late in the game: the closer you get to the full Moon, the more detritus is likely to get kicked up into the water, decreasing visibility. It was an unknown unknown to plan around the lunar calendar. (Digression: I'm just reminded of one of my favorite song lyrics from the B52's..."There's a moon in the sky / It's called the Moon." Ahem.)

LAST DAYS OF DIVING
Every morning I went out to dive, wondering if the visibility would improve. That Saturday was to be our last scheduled day in Speyside, and the moon was to be full. I had secured my Open Water Diver certification. From a technical standpoint, I had more control over the under-sea white balance settings on the borrowed G10 (at the dive master's suggestion, I brought a white hand towel from the hotel in the pocket of my BCD - that's "buoyancy control device" - to set the white balance at the bottom, lest everything turn out a wild shade of turquoise.) We took the speedboat out to a spot off of Little Tobago island, me clutching the cameras to my body as we tipped ourselves backward into the water, and descended down to the coral again and again. (Luckily there weren't too many other divers clamoring for the attentions of the dive master, requesting to dive other sites.)

Each time I saw the coral coming into focus in front of me I had to catch my breath a little. Its scale unnerved me a bit, and it was beautiful in the hazy water. I swam around it, trying to keep still -- the first time I photographed it, I looked up from my camera only to find that I had drifted upward at least 10 feet in only a few seconds. We had since added an extra pound to my weight belt to help stay a bit more stationary. My control underwater improved, but visibility never did despite adding a couple extra days of diving.

By the end of the trip my fears about SCUBA had receded -- save the time when my BCD failed to inflate -- and I would venture to say that I now would actually seek it out. All the better to find the 100,000-year-old clonal sea grass in Spain.

But I'll be sure to check the lunar calendar first.

TRINIDAD & TOBAGO & 2000-YEAR-OLD BRAIN CORAL

Seaweed “garden” and detail of the ancient Brain Coral


It’s day 4 of a trip to Tobago, where I’ve just completed dive #3 towards my open water diving certification and my first opportunity to see the 2,000-year-old Brain Coral which brought me down here.

The real test for me started on Sunday with my first SCUBA dive outside of the reassuring confines of a swimming pool. SCUBA is one of those things that I doubt I ever would have tried without a motivator like the OLTW project. The sheer vastness of the oceans and the physiological wrongness of breathing underwater kept me happily on the shores (or on the surface, snorkeling, at least). Until now. The Brain Coral is the first underwater subject my list — a welcome tip from a biologist in London who happened to vacation here a couple years ago — and so here I am, overcoming a fear and working to advance my project in the process.

(Next on the underwater list: 100,000-year-old clonal sea grass in Spain, and another species of coral in the South Pacific over twice as old as the Brain Coral.)

Thankfully, I had the opportunity to start my training at home in NYC, thanks to Robert Elmes who supported OLTW by generously purchasing SCUBA lessons for myself and my sister Lisa (whom you may remember from the excursion to find the Clonal Spruce.)

DIVE #1
A baby step. We started on the shore and made our way down into a bit of reef after a skills review – removing your respirator then clearing it and breathing again, taking off your mask and replacing it, exhaling sharply through your nose to clear all the water back out, towing the limp instructor back into shore, etc.)

DIVE #2
The following day we got into the dive boat and headed out of the bay around to Little Tobago Island for my first real dive. I took some preemptive Pepto lest seasickness or nerves get the better of me. After the initial grip of fear (Robert reports my eyes were wide as saucers when we first rolled back-first off the boat and into the water), I was able to stop thinking so hard about my breathing and stat to look around. The visibility was around 20 to 30 feet, which I was told wasn’t very good…until I got in the water today.

DIVE #3: THE CORAL
Today was my first trip to the coral and my first time shooting underwater. I was still nervous, though not nearly as much. The dive was far more difficult today, however. The water had been churning and particles floated everywhere, casting a yellowish haze. Anything beyond 5 feet in front of you seemed to lose its clarity. It was rough going with the currents, though diving was far more to my liking with a camera in hand. The last stop on our dive route was the coral. It loomed in the low light, larger than that I had imagined – I’m told about 18 feet across and I’d venture to guess (water distorts your sense of scale) around 14 feet tall. It looked like a moon from an old science fiction movie, a little ragged around the edges (about a decade ago it was attacked by a school of fish which have since moved on, apparently), and imperfectly round, like it had been hurtling through space for a while. (I was also reminded to the Llareta, which, albeit terrestrial, shares some similarities of form.)

I don’t know if it’s the pressure of all that water, the swimming, the psychological hurdles, or all of the above, but each dive leaves us spent. So I leave you this evening with a max depth of 57 ft and total dive time of 133 minutes… and the plan to go back out their tomorrow in hopes of making more photos in better conditions.

WHAT DOES A 9,500 CLONAL SPRUCE LOOK LIKE?

Here's an image of the Spruce, standing alone on a plateau in a Swedish park near the Norwegian border. The shrubby-looking growth near the ground represents most of the tree's age -- in fact the stem (or trunk) that we recognize as tree-like is actually a product of climate change -- the tree has grown taller as the mountain top has grown warmer.

GREETINGS FROM UPPSALA

Hello from Uppsala, Sweden!

It's day 3 of our Swedish excursion, if you count the overnight flight from Newark.

My youngest sister Lisa, recent Weslyan University grad and soon-to-be intern at Galapagos Art Space, has joined me on my trip to Sweden in search of the 9,500-year-old clonal Spruce tree. We are about to set out on a 6 hour drive -- effectively taking a cross-country trip, heading from Uppsala to Fulufjällets Nationalpark, which shares a border with Norway.

I can't share the exact location of the tree -- in fact it took some convincing to assure the biologist who discovered the tree only last year that my intentions are good, and that no harm will befall the tree in the making of my photographs.

We've got to hit the road. More soon, internet permitting.

9,500-year-old clonal spruce

Get ready: I'm heading to Sweden on Sept 14th to find and photograph a 9,500-year-old clonal Spruce tree.