The world's second tallest tree has been found by Tasmanian foresters and it was less just three miles from a popular tourist attraction, the Tahune Airwalk. The giant 331-foot swamp gum tree is second only to a giant coast redwood in the Redwood National Park in California that stands at 115 meters or about 378 feet. The Tasmanian tree, estimated to be about 400 years old, has been aptly named Centurion which is a Roman officer in charge of 100 soldiers. The tree was found using airborne laser scanning which reflects laser signals off the canopy of the trees. Centurion will also go into the record books as the tallest hardwood tree in the world, the tallest eucalyptus in the world and the tallest flowering tree in the world. Forestry Tasmania plans to make the majestic beauty accessible to the public with a boardwalk and other facilities. Forestry Tasmania's resource information manager, David Mannes, said, "It is hard to believe it has been here so long without us even knowing."

apsasine wrote:
The world's second tallest tree has been found by Tasmanian foresters

Great news, just wanted to clarify that Eucalyptus regnans is now the second tallest tree species on the planet, not the second tallest tree.

Interesting that they located the tree by laser scanning from an airplane, I guess the days of ground _base_d exploration by the likes of Michael Taylor are going to fade, it will become a race now to use airplane surveys to round up the last possible tallest trees on the planet.
-moss

Here's more detailed info:
http://www.forestrytas.com.au/news/2008/10/welcome-to-the-centurion

The LIDAR returns for Humboldt Redwoods State Park, Redwood National Park/Prairie Creek and Del Norte/Jed Smith have been processed for trees over 106m (348')...yielding hundreds more unknown tall trees not yet discovered.

I have spent much of this Summer tracking these LIDAR target trees down using GPS and survey laser and I can confirm that the LIDAR found many trees that Chris and myself would NEVER have found using ground _base_d searches because they grow in areas that were too remote and/or seemed too unlikely to have tall trees. Using the LIDAR data, we found several 360'+ redwoods growing WAY above any river flat... way up there in "high perched benches"...always with a spring flowing through to provide unlimited water. The LIDAR returns are rewriting the books in terms of ability to scan large tracts of forests fairly accurately. The LIDAR returns found in a single day in Redwood National Park, what a lifetime of searching by ground would yield. This is the truth. However, many of these LIDAR target trees were NOT accurately measured, especially when the tree's top is leaning relative to a steep slope. We have found that nearly every tall LIDAR hit tree that was growing on a steep slope was over-estimated, sometimes by 7 meters or more. On 113.7m hit that took all day to bushwhack to turned out to be only 106m. Nevertheless, we have found many new super tall trees, sometimes in places that just defy logic !

In order to verify whether the tree is tall these LIDAR targets must be investigated from ground and trees given a laser _base_d measurement or direct measurement. Sometimes it can take an entire day just to reach a single tree due to extreme remoteness and inaccessibility of terrain.

In Tasmania, the dense tree fern canopy can be penetrated by the LIDAR. Typically, LIDAR will slightly underestimate tree heights in both redwood forest and in E. Regnans old growth forest to true ground level not being detectable around cluttered tree _base_s. Additional refinement of the true ground level can be accomplished with careful processing of the lIDAR data.

Michael Taylor