Scientists have found a cluster of spruces in the mountains in western Sweden. The trees, estimated at 8,000 years old, may be the world's oldest ever found. The Norway spruces were found on a mountain side where they have remained safe from logging. Carbon dating of the trees carried out at a laboratory in Miami, Florida, showed the oldest of them first set root about 8,000 years ago. Although a single tree trunk can live at most about 600 years old, the spruces had survived by pushing out another trunk as soon as the old one died. Warming temperatures in the area in recent years have allowed the spruces to grow rapidly, making them easier to find in the rugged terrain.