4.8" Wide Petrified Wood Limb - Blue Forest, Wyoming

Wide Petrified Wood Limb - Blue Forest, Wyoming #141469

This is a beautiful, 4.8" wide agatized limb section of petrified wood from the famous "Blue Forest" in Eden Valley, Wyoming. It has been mostly replaced by agate which destroyed most of the identifiable wood grain detail. This section of petrified wood has been highly polished on one side by one of the top polishers out there. It doesn't have any of the tool marks or scuffing that might be left by lesser quality polishers.

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