Uploaded August 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
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.
Since 02012, Heggli’s team has monitored an eight-station transect running from the floor of Spring Valley, up through Nevada's subalpine zone, and back down into Snake Valley. Among the bristlecone pines, the Nevada Climate-ecohydrological Assessment Network (NevCAN) collects data every 10 minutes, around the clock. It records the environmental ingredients that trees use to grow, ring by ring — from temperature and precipitation to soil moisture. In a way, this data can be used as a recipe book to grow a bristlecone. In this talk, Heggli will introduce NevCAN and unearth the value of high-resolution environmental monitoring taking place in the Snake Range of the Great Basin.
The evening will also feature 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.
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.
Since 02012, Heggli’s team has monitored an eight-station transect running from the floor of Spring Valley, up through Nevada's subalpine zone, and back down into Snake Valley. Among the bristlecone pines, the Nevada Climate-ecohydrological Assessment Network (NevCAN) collects data every 10 minutes, around the clock. It records the environmental ingredients that trees use to grow, ring by ring — from temperature and precipitation to soil moisture. In a way, this data can be used as a recipe book to grow a bristlecone. In this talk, Heggli will introduce NevCAN and unearth the value of high-resolution environmental monitoring taking place in the Snake Range of the Great Basin.
The evening will also feature 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.
