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Post by miket on Jun 6, 2019 9:28:51 GMT -5
I've been so busy lately I haven't washed what I collected in the last three trips. I cleaned out my vehicle and had about a backpack full. More to go but I just wanted to share a couple pics. Thanks for looking. First a pile of wood... And this. I still don't have a clue what this stuff is, so if anyone does please let me know!
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Fossilman
Cave Dweller
Member since January 2009
Posts: 20,723
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Post by Fossilman on Jun 6, 2019 10:07:10 GMT -5
Petwood is always a hoot to hound.... NICE!
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Post by fernwood on Jun 6, 2019 10:41:43 GMT -5
Nice wood.
Other one could either be spotted chalcedony or a marine fossil.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Member since January 1970
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Jun 6, 2019 11:08:20 GMT -5
The damp wood looks real nice! The other looks like chalcedony/agate that formed in a bubbly or pebbly vesicle - once they pop out, they leave a cast of the cavity that held them.
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Post by fernwood on Jun 6, 2019 11:54:03 GMT -5
The damp wood looks real nice! The other looks like chalcedony/agate that formed in a bubbly or pebbly vesicle - once they pop out, they leave a cast of the cavity that held them. Please explain more. I have about 30 larger pieces that look very similar. Were ID'd by local UW geologists/professors as the SC or fossil sponge/coral. Can the cavities be replaced by quartz? Some of mine are. Thanks
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Post by miket on Jun 6, 2019 12:04:28 GMT -5
The damp wood looks real nice! The other looks like chalcedony/agate that formed in a bubbly or pebbly vesicle - once they pop out, they leave a cast of the cavity that held them. Please explain more. I have about 30 larger pieces that look very similar. Were ID'd by local UW geologists/professors as the SC or fossil sponge/coral. Can the cavities be replaced by quartz? Some of mine are. Thanks Yes, please! See, I thought it was coral but every time I think something is coral I'm wrong.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Member since January 1970
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Post by Deleted on Jun 6, 2019 12:20:04 GMT -5
The damp wood looks real nice! The other looks like chalcedony/agate that formed in a bubbly or pebbly vesicle - once they pop out, they leave a cast of the cavity that held them. Please explain more. I have about 30 larger pieces that look very similar. Were ID'd by local UW geologists/professors as the SC or fossil sponge/coral. Can the cavities be replaced by quartz? Some of mine are. Sure. In basalts, lavas and other igneous rocks, gas vesicles often form as the material moves to the lower pressures near the surface. These voids later fill with fluid-borne minerals such as chalcedony, which preserve the bubbly or pebbly texture of the bubble in negative, and the result is an amygdule. This is the source of Great Lake agates, thomsonite, copper nuggets, etc. In some cases, these voids first are partially filled with calcite or zeolite formations before chalcedony fills the remainder; once freed from the basalt, the softer materials quickly dissolve or wear away, leaving their imprints in the harder chalcedony/agate. Voids can also form in limestone seabed deposits and similarly get filled with chalcedony/agate/opal formations that preserve the shape of the void. Fossil sponge is a great rarity - and almost never is actually sponge. The only hard parts of sponges that survive are the tiny (mostly microscopic), hard spicules. They look nothing like a sponge. The rest is fragile soft tissue that quickly dissolves away. The same reason that we know of ancient sharks almost entirely from their teeth and not their soft parts (the rest is soft tissue, skin and cartilage that doesn't survive). Coral has a definite structure more akin to a honeycomb (thin, geometric walls forming short or long tubes, produced by the polyps) than a random bubble or pebble pattern. Compare to Petoskey Stone and other fossil and modern corals. There is a similar pattern produced in softer stones by rock boring clams, but that isn't a fossil, usually only occurs on the exposed side of a stone, and is unlikely in harder rock. Chalcedony and agate are quartz, and visible quartz crystals can grow in voids within them when the conditions are right.
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