Our featured specimen

​Juniper (Juniperus sp.)
Toe Jam Creek Formation, Oligocene
Tuscarora, Nevada
** A lovely slab from a renowned locality with a humorous formation name!  All of the wood we have ever seen from Tuscarora is "squished" (a not-so-technical term) indicating that perhaps it was quite wet and spongy when it was buried under a great deal of volcanic ash. It is possible that the deposit might have been a pond with sunken logs in a "waterlogged" condition, making them susceptible to being compressed by the great weight of the ash into oval and diamond shapes instead of their original round configuration.  The growth rings on this slab are particularly distinct.  Part of the story that goes with this fabulous wood!
10.5" x 3" on polished face; 5/8" thick slab   $119

Ancient Redwood  (Sequoia sp.)
Columbia Plateau Basalts Group
Miocene
Saddle Mountain, Washington
**  An exceptional piece from Saddle Mountain with clear and crisp aesthetic growth rings and a really lavender pink eye-catching presence!  This incredible display-quality specimen is further enhanced by the cavity which emanates from the center.  This cavity is filled with bubbly white chalcedony over its entire surface.  There are similar bubbles of chalcedony dripping off of the exterior rind of this slab as well!  A truly outstanding piece.  Got some Saddle Mountain wood in your collection?  Here’s an opportunity to add an extraordinary piece!
10.5” x 5.5” on polished face; 1/2” thick slab   $225

Conifer  (Pinales Order) 
Late Oligocene to Early Miocene aged silicic ash flow tuffs
Slate Range, Churchill County, Nevada
** Totally new find!  This log comes from ash flow tuffs determined by the Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology to fall in the range of 34 to 17 million years old.  So, it has been waiting for us quite a while -- and we are rewarded with a beautiful pattern and excellent slab.  Northern Nevada was very volcanically active during the entire Cenozoic so the geologists have gone to considerable effort to map and date all of the intrusive and extrusive igneous lithography throughout the state. When we cut this log, we were very pleased with the pattern and the separate color hues that have resulted from differential leaching of the interior.  It's a fine display slice and just the right size for the advanced collector of localities.  (Please note that we also have an end cut off of this log if you prefer end cuts to slabs.)
7” x 5.5” on polished face; 5/8" thick slab     $59

​​​Haw (Viburnum sp.)
Little Butte Formation, Mehama Volcanics unit, Oligocene
McQueen Ranch, Sweet Home area, Linn County, Oregon
**  Great blue agate pocket and numberous boring insect tunnels make this piece from the McQueen Ranch even better!  Notice that the structure of this specimen is diffuse porous with distinct growth rings and quite small vessels (less than 50 microns in diameter).  An interesting aspect of the wood anatomy of the 150+ species in this genus is that the rays in North American species are quite indistinct, while those in European species are quite distinct even when viewed with the naked eye.  Annual growth tends to be limited for the North American small trees and the exclusively solitary, somewhat angular vessels are not dense.  
 
The McQueen Ranch had not produced petrified wood for quite a long time, but a recent logging operation and the attendant soil disruption has produced some really nice specimens -- and we think we got some of the best!  If you have been following our website during the past year you have already seen a few of the fascinating specimens that the logging operation uncovered.  The lapidary that obtained nearly all of the logs and limbs continues to produce really neat pieces like this one, which is different!  The McQueen Ranch is directly across the road from the famed Holleywood Ranch which has consistently produced enormous amounts of petrified wood, but the two neighboring sites could not be more different in mineralization.  As a matter of fact, the mineralization diversity at the McQueen site is simply remarkable.
4" x 3.5" on polished face; 3/8" thick slab  $35

Willow  (Salix sp.)
Tertiary
Chimney Creek, Nevada
** WOW, NOW THIS IS WHAT WE CALL A LIMB SECTION!
We were pleased to acquire this extra long limb before it got cut up into slices.  It has an excellent gnarly exterior surface that makes it a prize display piece.  The Chimney Creek Reservoir diggings are no longer accessible since the road has been recently closed off to public use.  So, if you are a limb section aficionado and you are looking for "the big one" --this may be it.
3” x 2.25” on the polished face; limb section 9” long   $49

​Ancient Redwood  (Sequoia sp.)
Columbia Plateau Basalts Group
Miocene
Saddle Mountain, Washington
**  An exceptional piece from Saddle Mountain with clear and crisp aesthetic growth rings and a really eye-catching presence!   It is a choice, smaller end cut with a dramatic center and very well-defined growth rings.  This is wood-lover’s wood — eye-catching petrified wood with warm tones and a terrific center.  Notice how tight the growth rings are.  The tree must have been growing on a rather marginal spot to be as small as it is with as many growth rings as it has.  Perhaps it had insufficient water.  Perhaps insufficient nutrients.  Perhaps too much shade or two much sun.  Or perhaps, a bit of all of those factors.  Whatever the reason, it produced a really handsome specimen of petrified wood.  This end cut sits nicely on its natural uncut end for ease of display.  Got a piece or two of Saddle Mountain material in your collection?  This one might top the list!
3.5” x 3.25” on polished face; end cut varies from 1/2” to 2"   $49 

​Primitive conifer (Araucariaceae Family)
Dakota Sandstone formation, Cretaceous
Dakota Rim, near Blanding, Utah
** We don't see a lot of Cretaceous wood so we are always happy to see one or two of them available.  This piece comes from the locally named "Dakota Rim," just a few miles north of Blanding, Utah.  It is a site that has produced very few specimens.  Among the past specimens we have seen many were limb casts.  This one was being consumed by fungus when it was buried into it's anaerobic environment that began the petrification process.  In addition to its scarcity, we particularly like the green hued periphery on this nice specimen.
2" x 1.75" on the polished face; limb section 4.25" long  $38

​Joshua Tree (Protoyucca shadishii)                              
Virgin Valley Formation,  Miocene
Badger Flat, Humboldt County, Nevada
**  Good size (6.5" x 4.5") and good thickness (1/2") on this rare wood -- and you know that we don't "throw around" the designation of rare. Joshua Tree is one of the most scarce species of petrified wood that one can collect (others include Ginkgo, Mennegoxylon, and Trochodendron).  Joshua Tree is a monocot - it sends up only one cotyledon from the seed rather than two - and silicified petrifications of monocots are very rare in the fossil record (palm is the single exception to this).  A lot of the Joshua Tree suffered from heart rot (typical for monocots) and the centers were all gone before petrification started. Since it is a monocot, it does not have annual growth rings. Instead, it has an inner primary cylinder and an outer secondary cylinder.  The specimen we offer here is entirely secondary cylinder.  Most of the fossil Joshua Tree is mineralized in colors of gray and white.  This specimen is a bit different in that it has a richer rusty red color palette.  Charming, rare piece at a very affordable price point.  Our photomicrograph shows the unique arrangement of vascular structures!
6.5" x 4.5" on polished face; 1/2" thick slab  $135

​Douglas Fir (Pseudotsuga sp.)
Trout Creek Formation     Miocene
Private Ranch near McDermitt, Oregon/Nevada border
** 2017 was a good year for one of our favorite digger/cutter dealers.  He undertook a dig on the Zimmerman Ranch (with a member of the Zimmerman family!) that was a bit of a distance from the traditional Zimmerman Ranch digging site that has produced all of that beautiful easily-recognizable wood with the reddish-hued rind.  This new dig (and it was undertaken with a backhoe so it was rather deep) produced a wide variety of fossil woods with really good preservation.  The ancestral Douglas Fir genus, Pseudotsuga, is characterized by resin canals that are somewhat sparse, but when they do occur there are sometimes have two immediately next to each other.  Please see our photomicrograph showing this feature.  Worth noting: the paper by H.D. MacGinitie entitled “The Trout Creek Flora of Southeastern Oregon” published in 1933 includes the genus Pseudotsuga among the fossil leaves collected in the same Trout Creek Formation that has produced the wood.  
2.25” x 1.75" on polished face; 2.5" limb section  $32