Joshua Tree (Protoyucca shadishii)
Virgin Valley Formation, Miocene Badger Flat, Humboldt County, Nevada ** This is a rare wood offer, 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 much richer color palette. Even better, this piece was from very close to the bottom of the trunk and has a couple of rootlets - see the closeup above with the round structure. This is a nice specimen of a rare wood. 3.75" x 3" on polished face; 3/8" thick slab $98 |
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 |
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 |
