The city of Harupa Valley, California is not exactly known as an environmental oasis.

It's a city of about 100 hundred thousand, about an hour east of LA. And for many years if you knew anything about the environment in the area, it was that it was a super fun site where there were some acid pits left over. That is

until local researchers made a new discovery.

They found this kind of incredible thing growing on a nondescript rocky gully, an oak tree that is 13,000 years old.

Back in July, we brought you the story of this particular tree called the Harupa

Oak.

And it's funny because it's not exactly a tree, or it's not what you think of when you think of an oak.

It is a type of clonal tree, a tree that reproduces by recreating itself, cloning itself.

And the whole thing kind of looks more like a bunch of bushes or shrubs

than a grand towering oak tree.

But nonetheless, this humble tree witnessed the Ice Age, mastodons, the invention of agriculture,

and just so much more. And as we talked about a few months ago, the Harupa Oak was potentially facing a new threat,

this proposed housing development in the area. And it all made quite a stir in the community.

California is experiencing a very real housing crisis,

but is it worth potentially destroying a small natural wonder of the world?

When we left off, the City Council was preparing to vote on whether they would approve the

development or not.

A couple of weeks ago, they made the decision.

I'm Doolan Thuris and this is Atlas Obsciran,

a celebration of the world's strange, incredible, and wondrous places.

Today, we find out the fate of California's ancient Harupa Oak.

That is after this. Oh, the the

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