Petrified Wood

January 29, 2013 Uncategorized

The following pictures are pieces of petrified wood in my collection. Those that I have personally collection are so noted with a story. Others, I purchased from the collection of others. The colors correspond to the trace minerals incorporated into the petrified wood: carbon-black, cobalt-green/blue, copper-green/blue, iron oxide-red, brown and yellow, manganese- pink/orange, manganese oxides- black/yellow.

This is a piece of Acacia wood from Auburn California. The identification was made by Walt Wright, a well known petrified wood expert from southern California. It is from a collection by Theo Steinhauser, long time member and president of SFGMS. Here is a four inch sphere I made from a stump of Antioch Oak Wood from near Antioch California. It came off a ranch near Antioch that was since developed into a residential subdivision. I bought the stump off the rancher a few days before the bulldozers showed up. This is a piece of petrified wood from near Cedarville in the northeastern corner of California. I collected this interesting piece on a field trip with the Fossils for Fun club from Sacramento. There is plug of what appears to be near pure chalcedony in the center of the piece. Pictured above are a number of pieces of petrified palm wood that are labeled as being from the Mohave Desert in California. I believe some of the slabs may be from Sperry Wash, Death Valley. This small sphere of Australian jasper is resting on a Suiseki piece of petrified wood from the Black Rock Desert in Nevada. The Suiseki piece I collected on a field trip I led into the Black Rock. Palm Root Sphere-below This is petrified wood from the Black Rock Desert in Nevada. This was collected by me along with Scott Paradis near the Lassen-Clapper murder site. Lassen, who is well known for the Lassen Cutoff to the California gold fields, was on a prospecting trip into the Black Rock looking for gold with Clapper and another man. They were bushwhacked at the murder site and Lassen and Clapper were killed and buried there. The other man escaped to tell his tale. I have often wondered if they did find gold and were killed by the survivor so he could keep all the gold to himself. Kinda, like Dobbs in “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.” Scott is one of those souls you can count on that is up for a rock-hounding adventure anytime. On this trip I drove to the top of a steep hill in my Jeep in four wheel drive and Scott followed in his Ford pickup. I had loosened the rocks on my way up and he spun sideways and got stuck with rear end of his pickup up against a barb wire fence. Luckily with a couple of towing straps I was able to pull him from his predicament. We also crossed a wash with about two feet of water in the bottom without getting stuck. This is bog wood from near McDermitt Nevada. I found this on a trip with my two brothers, Lee and Scott. We also found Gary Green Jasper and a lot of plain pieces of petrified wood. On this trip Scott and I went from Winnemucca to Gerlach via Sulfur, camping at a hot springs near Gerlach then headed north from Gerlach through Soldier Meadows and Summit Lake ending up at Virgin Valley Camp for more soaking in a hot springs before spending the next night at White Horse Hot Springs in Oregon. Scott got out his harmonica and played a few blues numbers to entertain me and some uninvited coyotes that joined in. After a couple beers and soaking in the hot springs and enjoying the nighttime sky, even the coyotes didn’t sound too bad. Colorful opalized wood from near McDermitt Nevada. This is a piece of colorful wood I collected from Hubbard Basin Nevada. The Boise rock club was there digging when I arrived at Hubbard Basin. One of their members graciously let me dig in his hole after he was finished for the day, where I found this piece and the next piece. The BLM later filled in all the holes and when I went back in later years I did not find any more nice pieces even though I dug down a couple feet. I know there are more nice pieces of petrified wood there and maybe some day I will dig down about four feet to them in that glory hole. More Hubbard Basin Wood I collected. Note the great knothole in this piece. Pink limb casts from Texas Springs Nevada. I camped there in the middle of fire season and was worried that if there was a fire I might be trapped. I later found out I could have gotten out by heading in the opposite direction I came in from. From the Little Humbolt River near the Ash Chimney Creek Reservoir, Nevada This is a petrified spruce cone from the Virgin Valley Rainbow Ridge Precious Opal Mine that my brother Lee found when we shared a front end loader load of material from the pit. Lee found this one and another that is likely to contain precious opal. We have never cut any of them open to see if they do contain precious opal. This one is in my collection.

Here is some myrtle wood from the Seven Devils Beach, Bandon Oregon. In California we call myrtle wood, California bay laurel. It is the same tree. It is surprising how little trees have changed over the millennium. So little, that we can use books for identifying existing trees to identify species of petrified wood. I was given these by Joyce Dunn. This is another specimen from the Steinhauser collection. Theo labeled it “Pedocarpus Genus:Pedocarpus, Family: Pedocarpaceae, Loc: Linn County Oregon, Geological Age: Oligocene, Geologic Formation: Little Butte”. That is another way of saying it is from a pine tree that is 25 million to 40 million years old located at Little Butte in Linn County Oregon. This is petrified wood from Hampton Butte, Oregon. It takes an excellent polish and is highly prized for lapidary work, particularly the green colored material. The bottom piece exhibits worm holes. I collected this either on a trip with my brother Lee, or my club, SFGMS. This is a piece of Marston replacement wood. My brother Lee and I went to the Marston Ranch to get some of this material. Mr Marston, the ranch owner, was in the pit with his crawler tractor digging out material for the Rockhound Pow Wow, of which we belonged. For some reason, I would guess there was a better dig on another ranch, we were the only ones there. We spent some time discussing haying, cows, and other things ranch related with Mr Marston. He gave me a large piece of the wood he had just dug out, of which this is a piece. The Pow Wow trips to the ranches around Madras Oregon twenty years ago were really productive for great material. This is a four inch sphere I made from another piece of Marston replacement wood I collected on a later trip with the SFGMS club of which I am a member. These are limb casts I collected from near Paulina Oregon. I have been there four or five times to collect this outstanding petrified wood. The middle piece standing up is the first piece I collected there with my brother Lee. Contrary to the tall tale Lee tells that I stepped on his hand to keep him from grabbing it first after it was unearthed, I unearthed it on my side of the hole and he did not have a chance to grab it. This is a slab of a chunk of a log Lee did dig up at Paulina. I got a slab of it for cutting and polishing it for him. It does contain some of the green agate that Paulina Limb Casts are noted for. This is some of the Blue Forest wood I collected from near Farson. We always stop at Farson for some great ice cream as do most Wyomingites traveling through. This is another Blue Forest limb self-collected. I ground off the petrified algae to show the blue chalcedony. This is rather strange piece of petrified palm wood from Eden Valley Big Sandy Wash, Wyoming. It is black on one side with obvious pits characteristic of palm wood, but it is a light grey on the other side that has been cut at a difference angle of 18 degrees from this side. This is the other side of the same piece of palm wood. All the other sides of this piece are black except for this side. I believe this effect is the result of soaking in bleach in sunlight for a month or more. I acquired this piece from Rose’s Rock Shop in Casper when they went out of business. Here is another piece of wood (pepper wood?), from the Big Sandy Wash near Eden Valley. It was also acquired from Rose’s in Casper and also exhibits a strangeness. It has a shimmer when light strikes it at this angle. I tried to polish it further and it lost it’s shimmer with further polishing. I have since de-polished it somewhat to keep the shimmer. You can see some of the shimmer in the upper center of the above picture. Here is a picture of the same piece of shimmering wood and a piece of Eden Valley pepper wood from the Eocene Period, about 58 million years old. Oregon Buttes piece I collected. It is highly agatized with a nice knot and branch node. I found it under the power lines. These are more highly agatized pieces I found under the power lines near Oregon Buttes. Another one of my Oregon Butte Limbs. This is Montana petrified wood from the Yellowstone River gravel beds found while looking for Montana agates. It is highly agatized. I really like the black one with a white knot hole and grooves. I thought about making it a handle for a knife blade of Polar jade, but decided it is best left alone. I collected this colorful petrified wood from near the Henry Mountains in Utah a few years ago. Also found a lot of Coprolite on that trip. This is a sphere I made of bog wood from the same trip near the Henry Mountains in Utah. This is some Yellow Cat Wood from Utah from the same trip as the Henry Mountains. More Yellow Cat Wood from Utah I collected. A small piece of Yellow Cat Wood self-collected. This is a piece of drussy encrusted petrified wood from northwest Alabama I acquired in a trade. It was found in Barbour County 4 miles south of Clio, Alabama. Coming from the Wilcox Group, Nanafalia Formation, Paleocene Epoch. Around 60 million years ago. The type of wood has not been determined for sure. One expert told me it is Paraphyllantoxylon alabamense. I will take his word for it. The Druzy Quartz makes this wood extra special.

This is a piece of palm wood, probably from Texas. Palm wood sphere I made resting on my Suiseki stump piece from the Black Rock Desert with desert varnish. Tempska Tree Fern Slab Forty pound chuck of Arizona wood from near the Petrified Forest. Arizona Wood, Petrified Forest, Araucarioxylon, Triassic Period, 200 million years old. Not sure what this is, maybe monkey puzzle wood. This is Monkey Puzzle wood from the Circle Cliffs Utah