Oh, don’t get me wrong- there’s nothing in the article to suggest it isn’t fossilized. That would be most unlikely indeed!
But the detail still preserved, along with it splitting in the direction of the (former) grain, and the lack of any apparent compression on any axis makes it an absolutely beautiful fossil for its age.
In my experience, a lot of fossilized wood is plainly wood at a glance, but upon inspection suffers some compression along at least one axis / breaks across the former grain / shows distortion or even obliteration of fine detail. This find looks like the sort where they might be able to still discern fine structures under a microscope. The fact that they’re ID’ing fossilized pollen grains from the same material is also a good sign (although pollen grains hold up better than wood).
Very neat! Thanks for sharing.
My pleasure, and thanks for the kind replies.