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ANYONE INTERESTED IN MINERALS OR LAPIDARY PURSUITS is likely familiar with petrified wood. It is formed when minerals replace the structure of formerly living plant material but keep the original p...

Xenoxylon is an important boreal Mesozoic fossil wood genus and has been widely reported from sites across northern China. This paper reports well-preserved Xenoxylon wood from the Jurassic-Cretace...

Classifications and comparisons of petrified wood are currently based primarily on observable morphologies. The mineralogical characteristics of specimens collected from Qian Jiandian, Yanqing UNES...

We report here the occurrence of petrified wood resembling the modern dipterocarp Dryobalanops from the Neogene (late Miocene) of the Bengal Basin, India. We have determined the taxonomic position ...

The phenomenon characterised by faster growth of the side of trees exposed to sunlight relative to the opposite side is termed plant phototropism. Vertical trunks of silicified wood occur in situ i...

Monishar pathorer bon (Monisha and the Stone Forest) is an illustrated, Bengali-language story aimed at children aged 11–17 that uses a place-based approach to teach the principles of stratigraphic geology and global change. It is the first such book to be published in Bengali, the sixth most widely spoken language globally, and thus marks a significant contribution in geoscience education. The story concerns a curious village girl's quest to find a natural explanation for gatchpathor (petrified wood), which is common throughout much of Bengal. In doing so, she discovers a science-based explanation for a phenomenon locally explained supernaturally. Production and free distribution of 4,000 copies of the book involved collaborations between scientists, artists, and others concerned with enhancing educational and social opportunity in rural communities, and with geological societies in India, the U.S., and the UK. Outreach programs involved two female university honors students from the University ...

In 2005, archaeological excavations were undertaken in a single shell midden at a late prehistoric Irene phase (circa A.D. 1380) site on Ossabaw Island, Georgia. The excavations were designed specifically to collect information on the fabrication of shell beads and other shell ornaments. A considerable amount of stone was recovered, almost all of which is petrified wood used specifically in the production of “microdrills” for perforating shell beads. Also recovered were large quantities of fragmented knobbed whelk (Busycon carica), the principal raw material used for shell beads, as well as examples of shell beads in all stages of manufacture. The excavations of this midden, designated the Bead Maker’s Midden, produced abundant information bearing on shellworking technology, including the full range of tools and raw materials used and the sequences involved in the production of shell beads. Replication experiments were conducted to validate the archaeological findings. The collected data provide d...

Mesozoic to Cenozoic petrified woods are very rich and well preserved in the Khorat Plateau, Northeast Thailand, serving as remarkable material for investigations of tropical vegetation history, paleoclimatic evolution, and paleoclimatic evolution, and paleoenvironmental changes. Out recent field survey and investigations have defined about 50 species of fossil wood assigned to 19 genera and 11 families from Mesozoic to Cenozoic deposits in this region. These woods are ascribed to two groups, gymnosperms and angiosperms. Among them, about 20 species assigned to 7 genera and 5 families are the first reports of the taxa in Thailand. The fossil wood floras indicate that during the late Mesozoic period, the tropical conifer vegetation in Northeast Thailand was dominated by the family Araucariaceae. From the Miocene to Pleistocene, a tropical climate prevailed in this region with perhaps both deciduous and evergreen broadleaf forests comprising the vegetation. * Supported by the Major State Basic Rese...

Lower Miocene silicified woods from south‐east Coates Bay, Hukatere Peninsula, Kaipara Harbour, northern New Zealand, were studied using thin sections and scanning electron microscope micrographs. Woods resembling Avicennia, Nothofagus, Leptospermum, Vitex, Quintinia, Eucalyptus, Dacrydium, and other gymnosperms are described. Pyroclastic flows carried woods from a podocarp‐broadleaved forest to mix with Avicennia (mangrove) growing in estuarine conditions close to the site of preservation. The wood was probably alive or recently dead when overwhelmed by a pyroclastic flow. Fossil termite faecal pellets are recorded from borings in Avicennia sp. The hexagonal silicified pellets are similar to those formed by the extant New Zealand dry wood termite Kalotermes brouni. Four other types of borings in the wood and traces of fungal breakdown are described.

Petrified (silicified) wood is found throughout the Miocene sub‐aerial volcanic sequence of Coromandel Peninsula. The identification of 160 samples, mostly collected from geological formations of known age, shows that over the period from 18–6 Ma the majority of trees within local forests were angiosperms, particularly southern beech (Nothofagus spp.) and casuanna (Casuarinaceae). A species close to modern Weinmanma and Lauretta was also relatively common. Conifers, including kauri (Agathis), celery pine (Phyllocladus), and other podocarps (Podocarpaceae), were subordinate. Only the stems of larger forest tree species, with more durable heartwood, appear to have been preserved, and angiosperm species in general are poorly represented. This is attributed largely to the selective destruction of smaller, mainly angiosperm, trees by fire, decay, and abrasion during transportation within volcanic flows. Charred wood does not seem to have been silicified. Analysis of the wood assemblage suggests there were some...