science

King Clone

King Clone is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand King Clone rather than just read about it. In short: King Clone is thought to be the oldest creosote bush ring in the Mojave Desert. The ring is estimated to be 11,700 years old, making it one of the oldest living organisms on Earth.

Key takeaways

King Clone belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect King Clone to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of King Clone from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

King Clone is thought to be the oldest creosote bush ring in the Mojave Desert. The ring is estimated to be 11,700 years old, making it one of the oldest living organisms on Earth. This single clonal colony plant of Larrea tridentata reaches up to 67 feet (20 metres) in diameter, with an average diameter of 45 feet (14 m).

Geography The King Clone ring is on restricted-access land in the central Mojave Desert, near the towns of Lucerne Valley and Landers. It is in the Creosote Rings Preserve of the Lucerne Valley and Johnson Valley.

Dating methodology King Clone was identified and the age estimated by Frank Vasek, a professor at the University of California, Riverside. After Vasek hypothesized that the creosote ring was, in fact, one organism, Leonel da Silveira Lobo O'Reilly Sternberg (then a graduate student working in Vasek's lab), documented that plants within a ring had more similar characteristics than those from other plant clusters. Vasek then used two methods to estimate the age of the ring. One method counted rings and measured the distance of annual growth, and the other used radiocarbon dating on pieces of wood found in the center of the ring, and measuring their distances from each other and the living bushes. The two dating methods yielded similar results (age about 11,700 years).

Public appearances The plant was featured in an episode of Ripleys Believe It Or Not in 1983. This plant was in the 'Desert Worlds' episode of the David Attenborough TV series The Green Planet where he revisited the plant in 2022, after previously filming it in 1982 for 'The Baking Deserts' episode of The Living Planet. The plant had grown by less than one inch (25 mm) during this time.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with King Clone

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what King Clone claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to King Clone before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about King Clone ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of King Clone

In research: King Clone appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses King Clone in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: King Clone is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Individual plants, Landmarks in California, Larrea, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for King Clone outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study King Clone in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what King Clone means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain King Clone out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is King Clone in simple terms?

King Clone is thought to be the oldest creosote bush ring in the Mojave Desert. The ring is estimated to be 11,700 years old, making it one of the oldest living organisms on Earth.

Why does King Clone matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study King Clone?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on King Clone.