10.6" Polished Petrified Palm Wood Round - Wyoming

Polished Petrified Palm Wood Round - Wyoming #184856

This is an exceptional, 10.6" wide, polished round of petrified palmwood from the famous "Blue Forest" in Eden Valley, Wyoming. It shows amazing grain detail and pockets ofagate. It has been highly polished on one side by one of the top polishers out there. Small and large vascular bundles can be seen across the entire polished face, though the smallest bundles are best viewed under magnification. There is some crack stabilization along the edges of this specimen.

Comes with an acrylic/metal display stand.

This petrified wood was formed when trees died and fell into a swamp where they were rapidly covered by algae. This formed casts that preserved the original bark surfaces and kept the trees from decaying. Eventually the algae casts and the spaces between them were filled in by minerals, often in exquisite crystalline form. These casts have preserved incredibly fine details in the wood, providing researchers with a wealth of information about these ancient trees. A paper on the formation of this petrified wood can be found at the link below.

Mineralogy of Eocene Fossil Wood from the "Blue Forest" Locality, Southwestern Wyoming, United States