3.9" Black, Petrified Palm Wood Slab - Blue Forest, Wyoming

Black, Petrified Palm Wood Slab - Blue Forest, Wyoming #141476

This is a 3.9" wide, polished section of petrified palm wood from the famous "Blue Forest" in Eden Valley, Wyoming. It shows amazing grain detail and agate inclusions. It has been highly polished on one side by one of the top polishers out there. Small vascular bundles can be seen across the entire polished face, though they are best viewed under magnification.

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