This paper considers the asymptotic distribution of the longest edge of the minimal spanning tree and nearest neighbor graph on X_1,...,X_{N_n} where X_1,X_2,... are i.i.d. in \Re^2 with distribution F and N_n is independent of the X_i and satisfies N_n/n\to_p1. A new approach based on spatial blocking and a locally orthogonal coordinate system is developed to treat cases for which F has unbounded support. The general results are applied to a number of special cases, including elliptically contoured distributions, distributions with independent Weibull-like margins and distributions with parallel level curves.

Published at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/009117904000001008 in the Annals of Probability (http://www.imstat.org/aop/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org)