7/22/24
More here -- and a few more to come -- from our Oregon trip! --------------------- Don't forget to check out the new non-profit organization devoted to fossil forests throughout the world - to the people who study them, to the people who collect their treasures, and to news about new discoveries. Please read our ringing endorsement by clicking the Friends of Fossil Forests link below. ------ Jim Mills and Beth Myers |
Welcome to Mills Geological quality identified petrified wood and plant fossils from around the globe |
Pine (Pinus sp.)
Clarno Formation, Middle to Late Eocene Milepost 32 near Post, Oregon ** This perfectly-centered specimen with amazing visual aesthetics comes from the classic locality called Milepost 32 near Post, Oregon. We got this slice from the digger and so we can be certain of the Milepost 32 provenance! He found the log very near the entrance of the dirt road that leads to the north opposite Milepost 32 on the road to Post. The site is a section of BLM land that has long been a favorite spot for field collectors. Check out our photomicrograph to see the absolutely perfect preservation. It simply is the best we have ever seen from this location. 8" x 6.25" on polished face; end cut that varies from 3/8” to 1-3/8" thick $185 |
Juniper (Juniperus sp.)
Kalamazoo Creek Tuff Formation, Oligocene
Cherry Creek, Nevada
** Simply unparalleled beauty of both color and pattern. Each time we look at this spectacular slab we see something we missed previously. It is a marvelous piece of petrified juniper from the well-known Cherry Creek area in Nevada. The colors are every bit as rich as your monitor is displaying! Outstanding growth ring definition and good structure plus several small vugs lined with blue chalcedony. If you have a Cherry Creek slab already in your collection, we recommend giving this one a close look as it may well be an upgrade for you. Manageable size for most any collection that does not have (or does have!) the Cherry Creek location well represented.
Cherry Creek is a classic petrified wood locality from which beautiful wood like this is becoming increasingly hard to find on the market. Once upon a time, we had several slabs from this locality to offer, but in recent years, we have not been able to acquire any gorgeous slabs such as this one. This one is truly a work of art - nature at its best -- and the polish is exquisite! Be sure to open the larger view of this one.
12" x 4.5" on polished face; 3/8" thick slab $350
(immediately qualifies for our 10% discount on orders totaling over $200)
Kalamazoo Creek Tuff Formation, Oligocene
Cherry Creek, Nevada
** Simply unparalleled beauty of both color and pattern. Each time we look at this spectacular slab we see something we missed previously. It is a marvelous piece of petrified juniper from the well-known Cherry Creek area in Nevada. The colors are every bit as rich as your monitor is displaying! Outstanding growth ring definition and good structure plus several small vugs lined with blue chalcedony. If you have a Cherry Creek slab already in your collection, we recommend giving this one a close look as it may well be an upgrade for you. Manageable size for most any collection that does not have (or does have!) the Cherry Creek location well represented.
Cherry Creek is a classic petrified wood locality from which beautiful wood like this is becoming increasingly hard to find on the market. Once upon a time, we had several slabs from this locality to offer, but in recent years, we have not been able to acquire any gorgeous slabs such as this one. This one is truly a work of art - nature at its best -- and the polish is exquisite! Be sure to open the larger view of this one.
12" x 4.5" on polished face; 3/8" thick slab $350
(immediately qualifies for our 10% discount on orders totaling over $200)
Lauraceae Family wood (Umbellularia sp.)
Palm Spring Formation, Diablo Member, Pliocene
Colorado River Terraces, Imperial County, California
** You may have a great limb of "ironwood" in your collection but is it polished? The vast bulk of these great character pieces will not take a decent polish so it is quite unusual that we find one with an excellent shine like this one has. Plus, this specimen has another special trait: it is a complete round with the center and growth rings showing on the end of the specimen - see our photomicrograph. But wait - there's more! This one also has an incredibly gnarly wood character exterior with several knots showing along the exterior length. Even Better! This specimen has some color on the polished end – that’s almost unheard of for wood from any Palm Spring Formation locality! The vast majority of the so-called Ironwood material is simply chunks and shards of larger trunks (albeit interesting in that way) so it is quite special to find a complete round, well-preserved, capable of being polished and with great character like this one. The Palm Spring Formation crops out on both the Arizona and California sides of the Colorado River. Oddly, the wood on the Arizona side is nearly always light tan in color and never capable of taking a polish. The wood on the California side of the river is almost always dark brown and only about one or two percent actually will take a polish.
This wood has been called “Ironwood” by rockhounds for at least 75 years. It is not the same species as the ironwood that grows today in the deserts of the southwest, but apparently was given the name by early rockhounds because it rings like iron when tapped with a hammer. Even the most novice of observers can immediately recognize this specimen as petrified wood. Better in 3D than in our flat photograph, and a particularly excellent display specimen that sits naturally on the wide end or lengthwise.
2.75" x 2" on the polished face; 5" long limb section $75
Palm Spring Formation, Diablo Member, Pliocene
Colorado River Terraces, Imperial County, California
** You may have a great limb of "ironwood" in your collection but is it polished? The vast bulk of these great character pieces will not take a decent polish so it is quite unusual that we find one with an excellent shine like this one has. Plus, this specimen has another special trait: it is a complete round with the center and growth rings showing on the end of the specimen - see our photomicrograph. But wait - there's more! This one also has an incredibly gnarly wood character exterior with several knots showing along the exterior length. Even Better! This specimen has some color on the polished end – that’s almost unheard of for wood from any Palm Spring Formation locality! The vast majority of the so-called Ironwood material is simply chunks and shards of larger trunks (albeit interesting in that way) so it is quite special to find a complete round, well-preserved, capable of being polished and with great character like this one. The Palm Spring Formation crops out on both the Arizona and California sides of the Colorado River. Oddly, the wood on the Arizona side is nearly always light tan in color and never capable of taking a polish. The wood on the California side of the river is almost always dark brown and only about one or two percent actually will take a polish.
This wood has been called “Ironwood” by rockhounds for at least 75 years. It is not the same species as the ironwood that grows today in the deserts of the southwest, but apparently was given the name by early rockhounds because it rings like iron when tapped with a hammer. Even the most novice of observers can immediately recognize this specimen as petrified wood. Better in 3D than in our flat photograph, and a particularly excellent display specimen that sits naturally on the wide end or lengthwise.
2.75" x 2" on the polished face; 5" long limb section $75
Conifer (Pinales Order)
Columbia Plateau Basalts, Miocene Yakima Canyon, Kittitas County, Washington ** Beautiful specimen with really nice patterning and cut thick, the old-fashioned way. It comes from the one of the several digging areas in Yakima Canyon between the cities of Yakima and Ellensburg. This section comes from a growing root of a tree that must have lasted hundreds of years. The growth rings are very, very close together - as many as 40 to the inch. As a bonus, there is a bit of forest floor material adhering to the edge of the upper right in the photo (approximately the 8:00 position) with the roots of other plants and trees. One of our favorite customers refers to slabs like this as "bulls-eye" slabs. It is a beauty. 9” x 6” on polished face, 3/4” thick slab $83 |
Bald Cypress (Taxodium sp.)
Inyan-Kara Group, Lakota Formation, Early Cretaceous Black Hills, South Dakota ** FINALLY! We have collector quality slabs from the Black Hills area of South Dakota. It has always been a mystery as to why we do not see it often (or … really, at all). Various "Petrified Forest" tourist attractions have existed on private lands for nearly a century and perhaps the fear of not having their tourist attraction any longer has hobbled the availability of specimens for collectors. We simply don't have an answer to the mystery but now that we have some very nice slabs, we presumably don't need an answer. The attraction Black Hills Petrified Forest near Piedmont is one of the largest outcrops and oldest attractions and while their website says they sell South Dakota petrified wood, the only picture of collector interest is of Blue Forest wood. Other attractions in the past have borne the names "Timber of Ages" and "Skyline Petrified Forest," and while we are uncertain as to which attraction our slab was collected, we are assured that it is the Lakota Formation since that is the strata from which all Black Hills wood has been found. If your collection strategy includes having as many localities represented as possible, this is likely going to be a "must have" for you. The bald cypress slab is made all the more attractive by the patterning produced by pecky rot fungus. In appearance, this slab looks like it could have been cut from a dead and down log in modern forests! 4.5" x 4 " on the polished face; 1/2" thick slab $74 |
Pepper (Schinoxylon actinoporosum)
Laney Shale Member, Green River Formation, Eocene
Blue Forest, Wyoming
** So, it is possible that you now have a pepper tree specimen from the Blue Forest, but here is a special one -- a very handsome slice of pepper tree in which the large branch has sprouted a much smaller twig just inside the slice at the 6 o'clock position. But wait - there is more. This slice has many other outstanding attributes as well. This branch is surrounded by deep blue chalcedony - that deep blue for which Blue forest was originally named. Within that blue chalcedony periphery is the bark, now distanced from the wood and frozen in the chalcedony. We also love the yellow calcite filling the cavity at the 11 o'clock position - we don't see it very much but not because it is rare. Many diggers and cutters soak their logs in acid to remove the calcite in hopes of finding botryoidal blue chalcedony lining the cavity. It happens - but not nearly as often as the cutters would hope for. So, we are always pleased to find slabs with the yellow calcite still intact - it is a fine contrast to the deep blue color. Mixed in with the bark is some tan colored algae in the periphery. This limb would have been underwater for a period of time - a factor that explains why there are cavities in the log. Hydrolization ultimately dissolves wood just as it eventually acts on every other substance. That’s how water acquired its name as the "universal solvent”! We would also call attention to the borer tunnels in this specimen, each one of them backfilled with frass - the polite term for insect excrement. Of course, we have not yet mentioned the fact that the specimen has a pattern that has real eye appeal. It is always a treat to bring aesthetics and science into the same description. This is a special candidate to be in the possession of a discerning collector.
4.75” x 3.75” on polished face; 3/8” thick slab $68
Laney Shale Member, Green River Formation, Eocene
Blue Forest, Wyoming
** So, it is possible that you now have a pepper tree specimen from the Blue Forest, but here is a special one -- a very handsome slice of pepper tree in which the large branch has sprouted a much smaller twig just inside the slice at the 6 o'clock position. But wait - there is more. This slice has many other outstanding attributes as well. This branch is surrounded by deep blue chalcedony - that deep blue for which Blue forest was originally named. Within that blue chalcedony periphery is the bark, now distanced from the wood and frozen in the chalcedony. We also love the yellow calcite filling the cavity at the 11 o'clock position - we don't see it very much but not because it is rare. Many diggers and cutters soak their logs in acid to remove the calcite in hopes of finding botryoidal blue chalcedony lining the cavity. It happens - but not nearly as often as the cutters would hope for. So, we are always pleased to find slabs with the yellow calcite still intact - it is a fine contrast to the deep blue color. Mixed in with the bark is some tan colored algae in the periphery. This limb would have been underwater for a period of time - a factor that explains why there are cavities in the log. Hydrolization ultimately dissolves wood just as it eventually acts on every other substance. That’s how water acquired its name as the "universal solvent”! We would also call attention to the borer tunnels in this specimen, each one of them backfilled with frass - the polite term for insect excrement. Of course, we have not yet mentioned the fact that the specimen has a pattern that has real eye appeal. It is always a treat to bring aesthetics and science into the same description. This is a special candidate to be in the possession of a discerning collector.
4.75” x 3.75” on polished face; 3/8” thick slab $68
"Haw" or "Linden" tree (Viburnum sp.)
Mehama Volcanics Unit, Little Butte Formation, Oligocene Sweet Home area, Oregon ** Trees and shrubs of this genus in North America are called by the common name "Haw," while those in Europe are called "Linden." Call it what you want according to your own location! While much of the Sweet Home wood's preservation of anatomy can be hard to find, this one does have visible structure throughout the slab along with those well-defined annual growth rings. The first thing that you should notice is the angular character of most vessels. And note the vessels are almost entirely singular and their density is well within the range of 40 to 100 per square millimeter. 5.5" x 4" on polished face; 5/16" thick slab $48 |