Free-Standing Polished Petrified Wood Limb - Madagascar

This is a free-standing limb section of Triassic aged (220 million years old) petrified wood from Ambilobe, Madagascar. It comes from an Araucaria tree, an extinct type of conifer. Both faces have been polished to show of the inner wood detail. It has been diagonally cut for a larger display surface.

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.