Giant Oak leaves

The leaves on this old oak tree have never been this big in the last few decades. I’m wondering why they would be this large this year.

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Shaded leaves tend to be larger than sun-exposed leaves. Is the tree in shade? Alternatively, could be that this was a leaf from the inner canopy.

Young, excessively vigorous trees (or vigorous shoots on mature trees) also tend to produce bigger leaves. Was the tree heavily pruned and sent out new growth as a result?

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It’s a large old oak and has occasionally had some lower branches removed but not this year. We did have wet and cloudy weather this year but I have other oaks that still had normal leaves. Oaks are native to this area and there are several types. When walking in the area I did find another oak about 400 ft away with the same large leaves. In the past 30 years I’ve never seen leaves this big. Also the trunks have a tendency to send out shouts as low as 7 ft from the ground.
Here’s a photo I took today.

I’ve noticed the same thing on very young oaks (maybe year 2 or 3) in the woods. The shade makes sense…this would have been under the larger trees around it.

It’s Quercus velutina fyi.

Barkslip, thanks for the info. I have a variety of oaks but never took the time to learn to identify them.

The roots get into a sewer pipe?

No sewer and cesspool is 120 ft away.