Our featured specimen

Willow   (Salix sp.)
Grassy Mountain Formation Early to Middle Pliocene
Grassy Mountain, Malheur County, near Vale, Oregon
** Yet one more reason to be thankful this holiday season - that beautiful agatized specimens from the noted Grassy Mountain locality are still (somewhat) available, even if not that commonly found at shows and sales these days.  This noted locality has arguably produced some of the most colorful and collectible specimens in the entire world.  We fully expect the material from Grassy Mountain to become very scarce in the not too distant future - gold mining is being planned and the area will become a giant open pit mine.  Any petrified wood will be buried in spoil piles or will be crushed along with the rest of the gold ore.  A sad ending to a fantastic petrified wood locality.  Don't wait.

Mustard yellow, deep bluish purple, lighter blue gray, traces of red.  Aesthetics are at the top of the list for this slab.  Totally unfractured, with growth rings suggested by alternating yellows and blues.  This one is a knockout. 
4.75” x 3.5" on polished face; very thin 3/16” in thickness slab   $60

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Conifer (Pinales Order)
Denver Formation, Dawson Member, Paleocene
15 miles North of Parker, Colorado
** This is a special piece from the Parker Wood location.  Read on. 

Long called "Parker wood" by rockhounds, this fossil wood is found on the high plains of Eastern Colorado -- from Parker, Colorado, all the way east to the Kansas border.  There is even a tiny railroad hamlet called Agate, Colorado.  The railroad stop was called "Agate" because the petrified wood was primarily just agate limb casts with little to hint that it had started out as wood.  For serious collectors, the problem has always been finding representative specimens of Parker wood with good anatomical structure and good wood-like morphology.  This slab fills the bill for these collectors.  Please note the photomicrograph  which shows some of the coniferous structure we found on this slab.  All of those parallel lines are actually the ranks of the tracheids of a conifer.  Check out the photomicrograph that also shows a very nice strip of brecciated wood (down in Texas they call it "shrinkwood").  You can also see this brecciated wood on the main photo, close to the edge of the slice, at the six o'clock position in the photo.

As for aesthetics, this one has gorgeous color, pattern and "punch," enhanced by those beautiful blue agate highlights.  Every once in a while, we find a specimen that is just too aesthetically beautiful to pass up, especially if from a classic locality.  If you have the same collecting philosophy as we do, look no further.
8.75" x 5" on the polished face; 1/2" thick slab   $125  

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Grape Family vine section  (Vitaceoxylon sp.)
Humboldt Formation, Middle Miocene
Texas Spring near Jackpot, Nevada
** Texas Springs continues to provide great specimens –  persistently interesting and beautiful. This specimen gives us a look at a grape family vine that had already suffered great fungal damage before the volcanic ash covered it, cutting off any oxygen and thus killing the fungal growth.  Well, the fungus' loss is our gain.  Check out the photomicrograph.  It still shows the really large vessels (made even a bit larger by the fungus) and the vessels can all be seen to line up with the remnants of its very wide medullary rays in between.  We like the smooth chocolate agatized tones of this piece along with the white blotches where the fungus was totally successful in eliminating any remaining evidence of xylem.  It is another fabulous Mills Geological specimen with a story to tell.
2” x 1.5” on polished face; 2.5” long vine section    $30​

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​Conifer  (Pinales Order)
Kalamazoo Creek Tuff Formation, Oligocene
Cherry Creek, Nevada
**  Wow.  Here's a marvelous, solid piece of petrified wood from the well-known Cherry Creek area in Nevada.  Fantastic ring definition contributes mightily towards making this slab a real display centerpiece.  It is a fine manageable size for any collection that does not have (or even that does have!) the Cherry Creek location well represented.  Cherry Creek is a classic petrified wood locality from which beautiful wood is becoming hard to find on the market.  Once upon a time, we had several slabs from this locality on offer, but in recent years, we have only been able to acquire gorgeous slabs such as this one out of old collections (the source of this beauty).
9" x 4" on polished face; 7/16" thick slab  $85

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