15.4" Brilliant, Petrified Wood (Araucarioxylon) Round - Arizona

Brilliant, Petrified Wood (Araucarioxylon) Round - Arizona #184730

This is a brilliantly colored, 15.4" wide, polished round of petrified wood (Araucarioxylon) from Arizona. One side has been highly polished to a mirror-like finish. Much of it is a deep red in color with some highlights of purple and yellow. It exhibits some brecciation where it had fractured millions of years ago and these fractures filled in both sediment.

It comes with a display stand.

Araucarioxylon Petrified Wood From Arizona

This wood is similar to petrified wood found in the Petrified Forest National Park near Holbrook, Arizona. Its petrified forest encompasses nearly 100,000 acres, and is almost entirely represented by the extinct conifer Araucarioxylon arizonicum.

The petrified wood from Araucarioxylon arizonicum happens to be the state fossil of Arizona. It is frequently referred to as "rainbow wood" because of the large variety of colors some specimens exhibit. The reds and oranges come from hematite inclusions within the silica, the yellows from limonite, and the purples from extremely fine hematite spherules.

Araucarioxylon arizonicum is estimated to have grown more than 150 feet high and dominated the tropical forests in what is now Arizona nearly 225 million years ago.