My best rock hunting find ever happened yesterday

It probably takes a while to creek stain, like a year or two for the creek to lay a stain down.
I just had seen that specimen down in the creek when collecting from the unstained banks.
Even in the creek there are differences in color even when stained.
But when non-stained the colors really show for picking the best specimens.
the stain is a visual hindrance.

The wood is constantly rolling out of the banks and into the creek.
But the ones that are 'plucked' out of the clay under creek water level exposed by the creek erosion are really well silicified.
I am guessing they silicified in place under water table with full time moisture supply. No moisture - no silicification...

I sawed thru the bark on this same sample.
It was at an angle due to saw clamping limitations so the bark is half that thick. Bark is 5/8" thick.
The bark petrified terribly, it is pithy, which makes perfect sense since bark is there to keep bugs and fungus from penetrating to the delicate vascular system. Like a protective cover without capillaries. The vascular system of this wood is well silicified probably due to high performance transport capillary systems for transporting water, nutrients and CO2 found in tropical plants probably allowing silica into it's vascular center.

Now that it is known some of this wood has bark it may help to know what type of a plant this is. Devil's in the details...

bark to left, grain running vertically, wood basically quarter sawn:



another view of bark before sawing:

The edges often reveal hints and details. Judging from the oversize vascular capillaries along the edge this would be a high performing tropical species pumping CO2 out at high rates. They may assist it polka dot color patterns, cool.
Getting closer to what this plant's background may be.

As are we all!

Thanks folks. I'll just keep putting photos up.

Not many have tiny holes like this one. Perhaps rot or insect damage like small termites or borers perhaps.
Note how there are two separate silicifications on each side of the fracture.
Those with multiple fractures have have multiple separate and very different silicifications.



Any ideas ?

Will do Beth.
The wood interests me from it's variety of silicification, species, origin and deposition history be it attractive or not.
Of course the pretty stuff is the main target.
The variations and it's unlikely location do make it an exciting pursuit.

I have only sampled about 20% of the deposit, a drone flight shows it to be in a large area; it could see out 3000 feet, may be bigger !

Yesterday was a fascinating recon trip. The electric scooter was used to explore the petrified wood deposit boundaries on a 200 acre timber/hunting property with soil roads and a large powerline easement running thru the middle of the property. This time massive whole logs were located all resting **parallel to each other on a hillside at a fixed elevation as if a wind from the west(our present day prevailing wind is from the west !) had likely plied them there. Exactly the same way logs blow onto modern shorelines in parallel stacks. They were all resting at the shoreline elevation of the ancient Fall Line ocean. This petrified wood rich 'shoreline' has now been mapped out to 3000 feet of the ancient shoreline all exactly at the same elevation. This is a huge deposit. About the only way it could have petrified on that hillside is if volcanic ash from the central US had washed in on top of it and has since eroded away. An Alabama geologist reports that much of south Alabama was covered with a layer of volcanic ash. The nice colors of the petrifications relate to the minerals in volcanic ash.

Upper left photo is a Native man's ~10,000 sq ft chipping zone covering a flat ridge with a great view and easy lead trail to creek. The largest waterfall was at the ridge termination. Come low water a bet will be taken that tool type artifacts will be common in the creek at that location.



Middle top photo of powerline easement - The wood was piled up on the distant plateau and it's slope. Not a stitch of it on the closer stretch. That distance slope is the elevation of the Fall Line ocean and likely receives prevailing wind head on(if prevailing wind is the same then as it is now). Looks like wave action piled the trees. Then covered with volcanic ash which has since eroded away. Some of the logs were 8 feet in diameter.



rich coloring suggests high minerals and metal salts on this big log

Judging from the size and amount of wood in the creek and surrounding small downstream collecting area visited to this point it was not much of a surprise that there were whole logs upstream Patty. The collecting area higher than the creek had been terraced for farming like 50 to 100 years ago. The farmers had likely broken up any logs when preparing the land for farming. This property seemed to have been used for only growing trees and was devoid of surface terraces and land disturbances.

In some places there was so many whole logs in the ground the land was probably useless for farming due to the shear density of large logs in the ground. Actually this property may have been rendered as trashland back in the farming day due to it being rocky.

Yes it is a bizarre situation to have so many petrifications for Alabama or anywhere else in the eastern US.

Oddly, the minimal sampling done from this property were not near as variable as the downstream collecting area or anywhere along the creek.

Ah, Hounders - Damned if you tell, and damned if you don't.