Pop Quiz: World's Tallest Tree
by Dominic Muren, Philadelphia, USA on 05.19.08
Answer: C) 379.1 feet
Redwood trees are the tallest in the world, routinely reaching 300 feet into the air. The tallest Redwood ever discovered, named 'Hyperion', "stretches 70 feet (21 meters) farther toward the sky than the Statue of Liberty," making it 379.1 feet tall. However, according to the Save the Redwoods League, of the original 2 million acres of ancient coast redwood forest, approximately 95% has been logged, and approximately 18% of existing coast redwood forests is in a park or reserve. The remaining 82% is vulnerable to logging because it is either held privately or in a national forest.
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Source: National Geographic :: Save-the-Redwoods-League
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If it isn't in metres, I wouldn't have a clue how tall it is.
Please please please Treehugger authors, try to be more global and include measurments in metric as well as imperial. (including temperature). Most of the rest of the world (including me) doesn't have a clue when you start talking in feet, miles, gallons and ferenheit.
And please don't assume that most of us know what the two letter abreviations for States are. I wouldn't have a clue whether AK was Arkansas or Alaska (I could list numerous other examples, but I won't. I suspect many US Citizens also struggle with State codes too).
The same comment goes for any other Treehugger author based anywhere else. please assume that your audience is global and that people aren't familiar with local details specific to your part of the world.
.... thanks for reading my rant.
now back to reading Treehugger.
a) 56.39 meters
b) 78.3 meters
c) 115.55 meters
As for abbreviations for states being some how confusing for you Michael, I suggest you study the 50 United States and educate yourself. I could just as easily complain that British Columbians should not use the abreviation "BC" because I might get confused with Baja California, Before Christ, or Barnard College.
The feet and meter thing is not too hard to deal with. Personally, I prefer feet.
But whenever conversion is needed, people can easily use one of many free online converters like this one:
http://www.metric-conversion.biz/convert+feet+to+meters.htm
I have a head start on this particular tree, because I've been looking at the dimensions nearly weekly.
Recently, I was able to acquire a list with over 100 of the tallest known redwoods, including a few found with LIDAR:
See EXTREME REDWOOD DIMENSIONS / TALLEST
http://www.mdvaden.com/redwood_dimensions.shtml
There are two lists. An older one in the table, and a current on in a MS Word .doc for comparison of change.
Cheers,
MDV
The Douglas Fir grows taller than the coast redwood.
In 1930 one died and was measured at 393 feet near the Wind River, which is taller than any recorded Redwood. Canadian loggers claim to have meassured one 415 feet in the Lynn valley near Vancouver.