Elders of Time: Art & Science at the Nevada Bristlecone Preserve

For the first time in over a decade of research, Long Now Research Fellow Anne Heggli will present her synthesis of high-resolution climate data collected using paradigm-shifting long science principles at Long Now's Nevada Bristlecone Preserve in the Great Basin.

The Preserve is located in the Snake Range, one of the most climatically diverse and understudied regions in North America. Heggli has collected data from a network of high-elevation monitoring stations nestled throughout this wildly varied landscape - from the salt desert shrublands, to the subalpine forest on one of the iconic “sky islands” of the Great Basin. By exploring scientific questions across broader timescales in a data-centric approach, she’ll help us understand how we can gain a deeper understanding of the complex relationships between climate variability, ecosystem dynamics, and human activities.

The evening will also feature the San Francisco premiere of Elders of Time, a documentary following the installation of Centuries of the Bristlecone, a multi-millennial artwork by Jonathon Keats commissioned by the Nevada Museum of Art in partnership with The Long Now Foundation. The piece has two components: a monumental arboreal clock and a land art installation sited at Long Now’s Nevada Bristlecone Preserve. Jonathon Keats will join us to discuss “bristlecone time,” his tree-calibrated temporal standard, and how it exposes the limitations of Universal Standard Time.

Adam Csank, paleoclimatologist and dendrochronologist, will present the science behind bristlecone time, introducing his new long-term studies of bristlecone growth rates at the Preserve in support of Centuries of the Bristlecone.

Why This Talk Matters Now

There has been very little long-term multi-decadal work studying bristlecone regeneration until now. The Great Basin is a region with high climate variability both interannually and interdecadally. As the long science is drawn out, bristlecones have lessons to teach us about resilience and adaptation over vast timescales.