Made a real mess digging it out, though:
Posted on 08/24/2014 6:27:23 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
After serving nearly 30 years as a doorstop for a nuclear physicist, a hunk of petrified wood from Arizona has finally been recognized as a one-of-a-kind find. The 210-million-year-old piece of wood contains the first fossilized fire scar ever discovered...
Evidence for ancient forest fires predates the dinosaurs, but the clues come from charcoal, not from marks on fossilized trees. Charcoal remains of Earth's oldest fires date back more than 400 million years. No one has ever spotted a fire scar on petrified wood before, said lead study author Bruce Byers, a natural resources consultant from Falls Church, Virginia. That's because the scientists who study petrified wood rarely cross paths with forest fire researchers, Byers suspects. But Byers thinks more fossil fire scars will be found...
The rosy-pink stone came home with father and son 28 years ago, after a hiking trip near Utah's Bears Ears Buttes. The colorful chunk was collected on national forest land, where it's legal to take petrified wood by permit, according to Byers, who has detailed the story on his blog. The petrified chunk likely came from the Chinle Formation, the same wood-rich rock layer that litters Arizona's Petrified Forest National Park with huge, crystallized trees...
A fire-wounded tree valiantly tries to heal itself. The surviving wood hugs the fire scar, growing back over the raw, burned inner wood. The healing curls of wood leave a unique pattern of growth rays as they stretch around the trunk.
Byers' petrified wood had the healing curls. When the piece was cut and polished, he could also see a light-colored band dividing the pre- and post-fire growth, a mark that is also found in modern trees, as well as the unique growth-ray pattern...
His collaborators include the University of New Mexico's Sidney Ash...
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
Years ago I collected many pink chalcedony root "casts" deposited by water-borne silica in "molds" left by hardened lava after it had burned away the original trees and roots. I'll bet someone with a little time on his hands (and permission from the Park Service, the EPA, the IRS, the CIA and A.G. Holder) could find many similar examples in the Yellowstone Park region alone.
In a business near the park we saw a 30”x60” table with a large slab of petrified wood inset in the top that was selling for $26,000.00.
Why is it better to leave in the weather to deteriorate in the elements? All that looting and there was still so much it everywhere?
I’m not seeing it in the picture. Is the fire scar on the inside or outside of the petrified wood?
Taking petrified wood from Az will cause a curse to be upon you.
That was caused by global warming and it’s Bush’s fault.
Covered?
” It’s a wonder there are any left,...”
Don’t sweat it, it’s a renewable resource.
Tell us how you came across a meteorite?
Is the meteorite magnetic? I read once that is how to prove a rock is one.
As I said, it’s a family heirloom, it was collected by the person who saw it fall.
“I’ll give you 50 bucks for it.”
I’ll go $60
Made a real mess digging it out, though:
;’)
LOL!
But what really had the nuclear physicist's colleagues concerned was his radium night light.
Have you ever tested it for radioactivity?
Interesting idea, but it’s a carbonaceous chondrite.
Oh, drat!
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