[PhantomGremlin]

I went back and read both the LA Times article and the Wiki entry and, you're right, it is a fabulous story. The two articles are complementary, LA Times has the human interest story, Wiki has the dry facts.

Anyone who is interested in this topic shouldn't be deterred by this squabble over titles.

BTW to answer the title, the tree was cut down 50 years ago because a grad student who was "studying the climate dynamics of the Little Ice Age" asked to have it cut down. Because in retrospect this act became very controversial, the exact reason(s) might have been retconned. One general reason was to study the core rings.

[joedevon]

The LATimes posted a follow up story here: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/miranda/la-et-cam-... and the audio of the ceremony I attended is here (though Chrome has trouble with it, you need Quicktime or somesuch...works w/ Safari): http://www.weisslink.com/index.php?/prometheus-project/remem...

[joedevon]

Some people think it was done knowingly, to make a name for Curry, the grad student who made the request. Others say that because the Swiss guy who was trying to get a core sample which is non-destructive, was unable to do so before heading back to Switzerland, Curry genuinely wanted to do this for science. At some point I found a link where some students of his defended him and said it had a profound impact on Curry for the rest of his life.

The thing is, they wanted to study the rings because they thought it was really old.