content-left-bg.png
content-right-bg.png

Petrified wood

WebPartZone1_1
PublishingPageContent

Description

Petrified wood

Petrified wood forms when plant material is buried by sediment and protected from decay by oxygen and organisms. Groundwater, rich in dissolved solids, then flows through the sediment replacing the original plant material with silica, calcite, pyrite or another inorganic material such as opal. The result is a fossil of the original woody material that often exhibits preserved details of the bark, wood and cellular structures.

Some specimens of petrified wood are so accurate that people do not realize they are fossils until they pick them up and are shocked by their weight. These specimens with near perfect preservation are unusual however specimens that exhibit clearly recognizable bark and woody structures are very common.

Source: https://wyrdscience.wordpress.com/2011/01/02/fossil-forests-reveal-a-subtropical-antarctica/


WebPartZone1_2
WebPartZone2_1
WebPartZone2_2
WebPartZone2_3
WebPartZone3_1
WebPartZone3_2
WebPartZone3_3
WebPartZone3_4
WebPartZone4_1
WebPartZone5_1
WebPartZone5_2
WebPartZone6_1
WebPartZone6_2
WebPartZone7_1
WebPartZone7_2
WebPartZone8_1
WebPartZone8_2
WebPartZone9_1
Last reviewed 30 April 2020
Last updated 30 April 2020