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As I've said before, I am a rockhound of many years. I see recent posts on wood so figured I'd show a few of my personal finds. All are from my home state of Washington.

I was just wondering if anyone could help me out with identification of these objects found inside a hard sandstone matrix, I was given this stuff years ago from an old friend and had never looked at it properly at all,(I cut gemstones for a living and so the rough, stony stuff never got much attention,), . I was cleaning up and decided to wash the dirty stuff(like 20 years of dirt plus some decomposed something, probably rat). Once clean, I could see things embedded in the stone, So ... being curious me,..I slowly got one out. What is this?? Is it a bone or a bit of wood or something?.. how do you tell ? it’s around 5cm long, 13mm wide and 6-7mm thickness , picture is of one in the sandstone and one out... any help on ID would be great thank you for looking

Hi newbie here. Hoping someone can help me confirm if this rock I found on our property in central PA is petrified wood. Very dense material, and it looks like a chunk of decomposing hemlock. Thanks!

Just got back from a lovely sandsend fossil trip. i found afew boney/woody pieces on the beach. I wonder if anyone can tell the difference because i have trouble. This is probably the most interesting.

There are two samples here that may be petrified wood. The first one I have several pictures of and I am not sure about. The second one I only have one or two photos but I am fairly confident, just need validation.

Hey all. Decided to check out some of the Arizona fossil wood I got from the DoBell Ranch under a microscope. Got board and put my UV light to use. I shined it in the 5 gallon buckets and on the large pieces. I was surprised to see some pieces glowing a bright green, and continue to glow after a short time using shortwave UV. After some inspection under the scope, the fluorescence seems to be coming from a clear or white botryoidal mineral that looks very similar to the white, fine grained matrix. In fact, I didn't notice a difference between it and the matrix at 30x until after I shined the UV on it. BTW - I forgot to put on a glove with UV light - wont do that again! Anyone know what is making it fluoresce?

I know this is a concretion, but I think it is so cool looking. It has weathered so differently than almost any other concretion I have ever seen. Most layers of this type of material come off in a lot thicker layers. It is possible that is just how it weathered, but I am wondering if there is more to it than that. The layers are so thin and fine. I found yesterday while out hunting in a new favorite spot in the Britton Formation of the Eagle Ford group in Collin county Texas with Joe AKA @Fruitbat. The area I found it in is full of concretions. Many of them have fossils inside of them, but they’re a dark, brick red. The fossils are generally cepholopods, both ammonite and baculite, Inoceramus clams, other pelecypods and gastropods. This concretion is from a layer above the brick red concretion layer I think. I have concretions from all over. Some are cool colors and shapes and some have fossils inside, like my Mazon fossils and also Carboniferous ones I collected in Oklahoma. Also those that I’ve collected in the North Sulfur River and Britton Formation, but this one is unique it it’s own class. Any thoughts on it would be appreciated. It seems like concretions come up so often we ought to have a concretion section on TFF. Of course most of them come up in the fossil ID section. Anyone know the term for this type of concretion? I assume it formed by repeated thin layers being added on slowly over time, which now are eroding away. Thing is I didn’t find any others like it. I’ve been to the area 3 times in the last week. Why would just one concretion be like that? Side 1 Side 2 One of the long edges. The other is flat and solid looking rock, kind of like the bottom end of this one. End 1 different angle that looks a lot like wood, but must be just cool layering and weathering effects. End 2 the typical layered concretion look.

I have recently purchased 4 fossilized tree side tables (Which I learned later are for indoor use only) I would like to use as seats around a fire pit. What should I do to prepare them for outdoor use?

I originally picked this up thinking a heavily worn bone but a few weeks later after looking at it I see concentric circles, Hard to photograph but I would love confirmation if anyone can see it or if I'm just going crazy from looking at fossils! Found Myrtle Beach, South Carolina

Found at Myrtle Beach South Carolina, thinking just an interesting colored chunk of fossil bone but I'm wondering if it could be wood.

This comes from 600+ft of water off the coast of maine. It seems to be petrified wood or coral. Any ideas?

First regular post here and sorry that it's a more or less redundant post.... I'm trying to figure out a floating sifter and have looked here and elsewhere at them until my head is spinning. (Mind you, it doesn't take a lot these days to make it spin!<g>) It seems that many of you are using the floating pool-noodle/pvc sifters with good results. Whether wood or pvc it appears a constant is the use of pool noodles. I've been using a little "baking basket" about 16"x10"x2" / 40cm x 25cm by 5cm in size. The mesh is an elongated square (diamond?) shape, something like 1/4"x3/16" or 6mm x 3mm. I like the 2"/5cm lip of it for washing the matrix back and forth. I've got a piece of 1/8" hardware cloth laying inside the baskets. It has worked well, but I've only worked at the edge of the creek where I could sit it down in the edge of the water as I fill with matrix to sift...it didn't have to float. If I move out into toward the center of the creek this isn't going to work. For now, I figured that I could zip tie a pool noodle to both long sides of the basket and see how it works. When I got to Walmart, though, there were three different sizes of pool noodles. I ended up picking up a "medium" 2-7/8"(7cm) and "large" 4-1/4" (11cm). The large size is pretty substantial...maybe overkill? I figure I can take back the one I don't use if I don't hack it to pieces. Is bigger better? After thinking about it, it seems that noodles on the narrow ends might help keep it from pulling a Titantic plunge should the screen be loaded too heavily at one end. The reason I ask is that having a noodle on the ends will make it more difficult to hold onto...the same reason people build an extended handle onto their pvc screens, I suppose. I'm figuring on loading this small screen with two full shovel-fulls at the most. We have to walk a good piece to our hunting areas and the basket weights very little, which is nice. I'm looking at later building a slightly larger screen which I know will weigh more but hopefully be more efficient. I'm torn between pvc and wood. I really like the walls that the wooden sifters have over the more flat screens of the pvc...they can be worked back-and-forth vigorously without loosing anything over the edges. But, the pvc screens appear to be a bit lighter in weight for carrying. I take it that with the pvc sifters that the noodles are attached snug enough to create a "wall" of sorts to hold matrix in as it's be worked back and forth...??? It just seems like there could possibly be space/cracks that stuff could fall through between the pvc/wire-mesh assembly and the noodles. It must work ok, though, being as I see many people using them successfully...I just can't wrap my head around that aspect. It's probably something you have to see in action to understand. A wooden screen will be somewhat heavier but the big hang-up for me is how to protect myself from the sharp edges of the wire mesh and how to keep the screen firmly attached to the bottom. What do most people use to attach the hardware cloth/mesh? Pneumatic stapler, spring-loaded stapler, screws...straight against the bottom edge or wrap it around the sides??? Edge protection...just fold over the edges and hope for the best or add some trim to it? Maybe the pool noodles help cover the edges? We're going to head to the creek in the morning. There are supposed to be thunderstorms moving in tomorrow but the bulk of the storms are supposed to be later in the day and into the night so hopefully we'll beat them. We're gonna be wet anyhow. I thought I'd try to get the baskets and noodles squared away today. We will probably still be at the edge of the creek but it'll be a good time to do a "test voyage" and see how the flotation works out. Maybe I'm overthinking this? (I've been known to do such things! ) Thanks for any feedback, if you've made it this far into my post then you are definitely dedicated! Ed

Hello! I've had this in my yard for years and years. I'm not sure as to what type of tree it is or what kind of growths are on it. It looks to be like a lot of varieties of quartz. Any info is greatly appreciated!.. thanks!

I have been finding fossil wood from cretaceous mud deposits that is still soft. However, when it dries it usually crumbles to bits. Sometimes when it breaks open it is black and glassy-looking inside. Some has pyrite crystals growing on it. What would be a good way to preserve it? Keep it in a jar of water? Paraloid? ????

Its been a while since I've been on this forum but since my last post I have searched 100's of acres digging up the past. In 2 years my collection of petrified wood has grown to include fossilized oysters found in Pensacola and lower Alabama.

1 years collection of Petrified Wood and Fossils from South Alabama.

I found this petrified tree stump today in very good condition. It weighs approximately 100 lbs, stands 1 foot tall and is 10 inches in diameter. Not sure on what kind of tree it was but it still has the bark. I was curious of how much I could sell this for. I found it near the Frio River and it hasn’t been cut or polished. I did wash the dirt off of it but thats it.

Found this neat looking rock this weekend. It has a ring around its outer area that looks like bark and is hard as rock. Could this be Petrified Wood?

That is located at the begginning of Sissonsville rd in Cross Lanes you can see it from space https://earth.google.com/web/@38.42921102,-81.74297347,209.10297332a,40.29025545d,35y,0.55328534h,1.72088705t,

One more, if I may - This piece looks like a piece of wood! But it is in an area with a large amount of Calamites. (Lesser amounts of sigillaria and lepidodendron). A "root" section? Again, I am at a loss - and I will probably find MORE like this one. It is SOME part of a tree... Pennsylvanian period, of course. The 2nd photo is a close-up. Thank you for your attention!

This fossil is odd on a number of levels! The shale is a bit crumbly - but the "stick" that protrudes on the left side of figure 1 and 2 are VERY hard. Photo 3 and 4 are the reverse side... it looks like layers of wood! Found in an area heavy with calamites - Could these be pith casts? A rhizoid? I'm lost on this one!

Dear Sir's,this is not a fossil I found.Please move if it should be in another spot.I found this beside the Sandusky river Fremont,Ohio northwest Ohio.It looks like a tooth to me and people I showed it to but is not rock or mineral.It is very light weight and has a woody feel to it.When I found it I thought it was from a recent animal so I showed it to all the hunters where I work(lots of them in this area).Was surprised none of them had ever seen something like this.There also seems to be two holes at the top of it on one side and one on the other side.One person who is really into animals and nature said it was canine but had no other ideas.Another said it looked and felt like antler to him.he also said with the holes it was possible that it was a carved from antler indian charm.Ohio had lots of native people and rivers move things a long way.I know mother nature can shape things in crazy ways to look like things they are not but the shape at the wide top is really so toothlike its hard to think this is whats going on here.I'm sorry for the bad photos I tried my best and can try again if someone asks.What do you think this may be? Thank You for any replies.......Steve