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 |
Undetermined dicot angiosperm wood (Incertae sedis)
Little Butte Formation, Mehama volcanics unit, Oligocene McQueen Ranch, Sweet Home area, Linn County, Oregon ** If you are a frequent follower of our website specimens, you know that we generally prefer to offer specimens with an identified taxonomic affinity (whether it is species, genus, or family). But like a lot of other factors in life, there are sometimes exceptions and this is one of them. The Linn County Petrified Forest has produced a multitude of different genera and a plethora of different mineralizations. Occasionally we see Sweet Home specimens with incredible agate fortifications and this one really has what we call "punch." The agate is a lovely blue color with a snow white center. The blue color has the same geologic origin as the famous "Holley Blue" agate named after the village of Holley which is near the old McQueen Ranch property. The limb from which this specimen was cut was uncovered during a logging project on the ranch recently. So striking! 3.5" diameter on the polished face; 5/16" thick slab $38 |
Oak (Quercus sp.)
Columbia Plateau Basalts Group, Miocene Deschutes Canyon, Oregon ** A VERY nice slab of oak from this legendary locality. The site was on top of the canyon walls about four miles upstream of the confluence of the Deschutes River and the Columbia River. In recent years, the ranchers who own the land on the sides of the canyon walls have closed their property to collecting. As a consequence, this especially nice material has now become much more difficult to obtain so we were pleased to find this one at one of the Oregon shows. This specimen has the nice characteristics that make Deschutes Canyon material desirable -- excellent eye appeal, nice sharp definition of medullary rays, great pattern enhanced by the rot pocket in the upper center. This one is destined for inclusion in someones display case! Click photo for a closer view ... and then don't let this one get away! 6.5" x 5.5" on polished face; 3/8" thick slab $149 |
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Maple (Acer sp.)
Trout Creek Formation Miocene Private Ranch near McDermitt, Oregon/Nevada border ** We don't see a lot of maple from McDermitt even though the paper by H.D. MacGinitie entitled “The Trout Creek Flora of Southeastern Oregon” published in 1933 includes considerable specimens of the genus Acer among the fossil leaves collected in the same Trout Creek Formation that has produced the wood. Things to notice on the accompanying photomicrograph: diffuse pores of a diameter generally under 50 microns and pore density of around 40 per square millimeter, The ramrod straight medullary rays remind you of why this genus is a favorite for butcher blocks. 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. 1.5” diameter on the polished face; 2.5” long limb section $34 |