Our featured specimen

Pepper tree (Schinoxylon actinoporosum)
Laney Shale Member, Green River Formation, Eocene
Blue Forest, Sweetwater County, Wyoming
** We just love this Schinoxylon with its surrounding matrix of algae.  It has beautiful blue agate along with a couple of splashed of yellow calcite.  Note that the yellow calcite is not often seen in specimens because cutters tend to dissolve it in acid hoping to find bubble botryoidal blue agate underneath.  We like to have some of both characteristics in our own collection!   GREAT PIECE!  There always seems to be room for one more beautiful Blue Forest piece in everyone’s collection. 
Get this piece to view in person as you as you read the freshly published article called "Mineralogy of Eocene Fossil Wood from the "Blue Forest” Locality, Southwestern Wyoming, United States.  
​To read this paper, which is open access, and free to read, click the button below
 6” x 4.5” on the polished face;  1/4” thick slab  $45  

Eocene Fossil Wood, Blue Forest

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​Osage-Orange (Maclura sp.)   Board cut stand-up
Ricardo Formation, Pliocene
Last Chance Canyon, California
** Here is a small board cut Osage-Orange specimen with a great pattern from Last Chance Canyon, north of Mojave, California.  The petrified forest at Last Chance Canyon in the El Paso Mountains was completely depleted by rockhounds and souvenir hunters long before the State of California established Red Rock Canyon State Park in this area, and subsequently added Last Chance Canyon to the park.  So, even if there were more petrified wood there now (there isn't), you would not be allowed to collect it! This piece was collected in the 1960's by a rockhound from Southern California.  We think that the pattern on this board cut is particularly handsome!  Fascinating accompaniment to your transverse cut specimens or limbs from the same locality.  Osage Orange is not rare, but not common either.  
3" x 2" on polished face; end cut varies in thickness to 3/4”    $32

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Poplar (Populus sp.)            
Columbia Flood Basalts;  Miocene
Stinking Water Mountain, near Burns, Harney County, Oregon
**  A bold and exciting find!  Nearly all petrified wood collections contain specimens of oak from the Stinking Water Mountain area of Oregon.  However, it is less common to find other species of wood from that famed locality.  That is why we are highly pleased to offer a slab of Poplar with a superb pattern of contrasting hues on its professionally-polished face.  Doesn't the shape of this slab just add to its interest?
The Stinking Water petrified wood has a really interesting geologic history. The host rock is hyaloclastite with intermixed basalt pillows and capped by a basalt flow above the wood layer. Hyaloclastite forms when basalt lava flows into a body of water and rapidly cools, fragmenting into glassy bits. The interpretation of this hosting rock type is that the trees, which are preserved in upright growth position, were submerged before lava covered the area.  The most likely explanation is that the basalt flow dammed a river, flooding the surrounding woodland. This shielded the trees, enabling their survival of volcanism without being incinerated. The capping basalt created an anaerobic environment for the wood, preventing decay by fungus, bacteria, or insects. The trees, now entombed in rock, slowly were replaced by silica from the surrounding rock with such detail that the cellular structure is intact.  The Stinking Water locality was previously thought to be Pliocene in age but recent dating by the 40Argon/39Argon has determined it is actually older (Miocene) at 13.79 Million years.   This slab is a nice, thick, attractive winner!
8" x 11" on polished face, 1" thick slab   $350
(immediately qualifies for our discount of 10% on orders which total more than $200)

​"Halite Wood"  (Incertae sedis)
Mehama Volcanics Unit, Little Butte Formation, Oligocene
Sweet Home area, Linn County, Oregon
** This fascinating wood contains chalcedony pseudomorphs after halite cubic salt cubes.  This log spent considerable time immersed in salt water and the salt cubes were deposited in the wood as the wood began to deteriorate.  When petrification began, the salt was dissolved away and the resulting cubic cavities began to fill with chalcedony. The growth rings managed to survive in this specimen; the vast majority of halite wood we have seen does not share this characteristic.  So, this is a terrific example of halite wood!  Check out our photomicrograph of some of the pseudomorphed cubes.  The woody fine structure did not survive the immersion in salt water so we are unable to determine a species or family affinity. 

​If interested, we are happy to include in your order a PDF file of a 1950 article from the American Journal of Science which discusses the taphonomy of the petrified wood with quartz pseudomorphs after halite from the Linn County petrified forest near Sweet Home, Oregon.
5” x 4.5” on polished face; 3/8" thick slab    $55

Fossil wood (Incertae sedis)
Denver Formation, Dawson Member, Paleocene
East of Parker, Colorado
**  Check out the incredible blue quartz-crystal pockets in this piece! 
Long called "Parker wood" by rockhounds, this material is widespread over the high plains of Eastern Colorado -- from Parker, Colorado, all the way out east to the border with Kansas.  Included in this area is the tiny railroad hamlet of Agate, Colorado.  Guess why the railroad stop was called "Agate"?  Of course, the material was mostly just agate limb casts with very little to hint that it had started out as wood.  The problem has always been finding representative specimens with good wood structure and a center pith along with nicely defined growth rings.  Every once in a while, we find a specimen that is just too aesthetically beautiful to pass up even if it does not have the best remaining wood structure.  Please see our photomicrograph.  All of these lines are actually the rays of the wood but there is no indication of any vascular structure so we are unable to make a taxonomic determination.  But wait!  Look back at that macro photo and see if you don't agree with us that this is an exceptionally beautiful specimen and worthy of the most advanced collectors.  If you agree, then don't hesitate to order it!  
5.5" x 3" on the polished face; 1/4" thick slab  $75

​Tanoak in lahar (Lithocarpus sp.)
Mehama Volcanics Unit, Little Butte Formation, Oligocene
McQueen Ranch, Sweet Home area, Linn County, Oregon
**  A very unusual specimen with excellent wood anatomy preserved!  The McQueen Ranch was across the road from the former Marker Ranch (now called Holleywood Ranch) which produced some of the best-preserved wood in the Linn County Petrified Forest.  This stick of Tanoak was rolled into a thick blanket of volcanic lahar.  Lahar is a word originally derived from the Indonesian language in Java and it means a flowing, usually violent, mass of material ejected from a volcanic vent which combines with water and whatever soil and vegetation is in the area to create a hot mudflow concentrating in rivers or smaller stream channels.  If they have sufficient gradient, they can be exceptionally destructive.  Imagine a hot, viscous mudflow with the consistency of wet concrete and you can get an image of what a lahar would look like.  The difference between a lahar and a flow consisting of only pyroclastic material shows up on this specimen.  The lahar picks up anything in its way - either destroying it or taking it along for the ride.  In our specimen, the stick of Tanoak is being taken for a ride while the flow picks up small pebbles and bits of soil on its journey.  Notice in the photo that you can see just how angular all of those pebbles and bits are.  These small bits are definitely not river-tumbled with smooth surfaces.  This angularity is often some of the best evidence of a lahar flow.  The viscosity of the volcanic material in this particular flow made it possible to actually roll the stick into a larger cylinder before the entire mass cooled and was covered over by additional ash and mud.  It is not possible to determine the source of water that made the flowing mixture possible.  It could have been a heavy rainfall during the eruption, it could have been an existing stream, or it could have been a mass of snow which was immediately melted by the hot pyroclastic material.  Whatever it was, it did a fabulous job for the petrified wood collector in producing this exceptional specimen.  
​5” diameter on polished face; End cut up to 1” thick   $89

Ancient conifer (Araucarioxylon) 
Chinle Formation, Triassic
Mackelprang Wash, north of Winslow, Arizona
** Here’s one of those incredible green limbs that grace older collections -- and it can be displayed upright or horizontal!  We see almost no good display specimens of this material these days – it has been a half century since they were first dug in Mackelprang Wash and several decades since a second attempt (not so successful) was made to find additional material. The startlingly green color is caused by the element chrome – hence the moniker “chromium green wood.”  It takes only a few parts per million of the chromium ion to sneak into the silicon dioxide crystal form to cause the color change.  The generic term for these color changing ions is “chromophore” – using the same root word derived from the ancient Greek word "Khroma" meaning color. Our selection here is somewhere between twig and limb size, and is a very good display piece for a serious collector.  We do not think that this specimen would be enhanced by cutting and polishing - it would only serve to shorten the length, not to improve the piece.
1.5” diameter; 2” long limb section   $100

​Angiosperm Root   (Incertae sedis)
Tertiary
Chimney Creek, Nevada
** One of those pieces that just feels great to hold in your hand!  It is a main root with numerous rootlets emanating from one side of its axis.  Most of the material recovered at Chimney Creek Reservoir is root, not stem, and this section is no exception.  This may well have been a rather shallow root.  The rootlet junctions are on one side only of the main axis indicating that the smooth side was close to the ground surface.  Growth habits of roots generally preclude sending rootlets in the direction of the sky, a phenomenon caused by both gravity and the relative difference between soil moisture above and below the main root axis.  What to look for in this specimen: there are three rootlets emanating from this main root, giving it a spiky look and feel.  One of the rootlets in this fine example protrudes three quarters of an inch from the main root axis – a feature which should make it obvious to even the novice that there is something unique about this specimen!  This very attractive specimen has only minimal preservation of woody fine structure making it possible to see occasional vessels (making it an Angiosperm) but not enough to get a definitive identification. 
2" x 1/2" on polished face, 3.5" long root section   $45