3.25" Polished Petrified Wood Slab - Australia

Polished Petrified Wood Slab - Australia #260786

This is a 3.25" polished slab of petrified wood (Conifer) from Australia. The wood is often known as "Peanut Wood" as it's commonly found full of boreholes from clam larvae of the genus Teredo, commonly know as shipworms. Some of these boreholes found along one edge of the slab were filled in by a white mineral during the fossilization process. The wood itself is from Aruacaria, a type of conifer and is Lower Cretaceous in age, or approximately 113 million years old.

It comes with an acrylic display stand.

Petrified wood is the name given to wood that has been turned into stone (fossilized) through the process of permineralization. In this process, all of the organic matter becomes replaced by minerals, while much of the original structure, such as tree rings, is retained. For this to happen, the wood needs to be buried in an environment low in oxygen to prevent decomposition and with flowing, mineral-laden water, so minerals may replace structures. The coloration is caused by various minerals that present in that water during fossilization. For example, red colors are due to iron compounds, greens due to copper, and so on.