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 ...
This rosy-pink chunk of petrified wood from Utah's Chinle Formation is the oldest-known fire-scarred fossil. Credit: Bruce Byers
That is one mighty old door stop! :-)
Interesting but what does it mean?
Thanks go out to a FReeper who shall remain nameless, and sent the link in FReepmail.
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The public service announcment is, “even you can’t prevent this forest fire.”
Could it be from a lightening strike?
lol
Not even a T-Rex can pee it out
Yeah, I want one. I’ve got an older object I *could* use (meteorite, circa 4 billion years), not much chance of damage (except to the door) — but then, I keep the place buttoned down anyway, no need for a doorstop.
You have a meteorite? Very Cool!
I’ll give you 50 bucks for it.
Thanks, it’s a family heirloom, and will stay that way.
The Prof can except the NPS/BLM/FS SWAT Teams to come through his front door at 0430hr Monday to collect the rock!
I have my doubts that the cause of the fire can be figured out, but it does kind of figure that the natural causes of forest fires probably haven’t changed much.
Now we just need a bridge stone...
Wasn’t there a Dino skeleton that had identifiable lightning damage?
;’)
I’m a little hurt that no one noticed that last sentence in the excerpt...
Dino with cancer, never heard of lightning scar though.
Foggy mists of memory says that something like that was suspected.
Oh well, I’ll probably go nuts looking for it now.
http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Sidney_Ash
I did, lol...and Bruce Byers has a blog:
http://www.brucebyersconsulting.com/fire-scar-on-a-triassic-tree/
So many unlikely things have to happen to make petrified wood, it is amazing that there is any of it around. We went to the petrified forest out near Holbrook, Arizona last month and in the crystal forest section there are huge trunks and section of logs laying around everywhere. It’s a wonder there are any left, because apparently before the national park was established passenger trains used to stop nearby and people would loot the area as much as they wanted. 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.
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