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Showing results for tags 'yegua formation'.
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Strange Holes on Petrified Wood Bark from the Mid-Late Eocene of Texas
Ramon posted a topic in Fossil ID
Hello, I found this piece of petrified wood last month. It comes from Middle Eocene (37-35 million years old) terrestrial sediments, from the Yegua Formation of eastern Texas. What I love about this piece, is that it is a piece from the bark of the tree. The tree that this specimen belonged to, was some kind of hardwood species (angiosperm), probably something like maple or birch, judging by the structure of the wood in one of the endcuts/endgrains. What is so special about this piece, is that the bark side is covered in some sort of carbon film material, which gives it a nice, dark brown-black coloration. What is also very intriguing about this specimen, is that it has a couple of oval, conical shaped holes. They have a diameter of 5-6 millimeters, and a depth of 3-5 millimeters. At first, I thought these were the egg niches of cerambycid beetles. But they don’t quite match the shape of beetle egg niches, or other insects burrows that I’ve seen online. The egg niches of beetles have a slit at the bottom of the dent. They are also shallower than the dents in my piece of petrified wood, and are almost never arranged in a way, that is parallel to the wood. Now, I’m starting to think that they might be feeding holes, done by a woodpecker while foraging for food. From the information I’ve seen online, and the pictures that I’ve seen, they very closely resemble the holes in my piece of wood. Foraging holes done by woodpeckers are elongated, and cone-shaped (meaning that they narrow out into a point at the bottom of the hole. They are often aligned parallel to the direction of the trunk, and have a more neatly arranged orientation, than insect burrows/borings. The holes in my specimen meet all of those characteristics. They size is also what you would expect from woodpecker foraging holes. Here is the specimen Here I’ve highlighted the holes in the specimen Here are some close-ups of some of the holes. (Notice how they narrow down to the bottom, which is a characteristic of woodpecker foraging holes.) I wanted to know what you guys think of this.- 14 replies
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I haven't been able to hunt much this year and I have written absolutely nothing the hunts I have been on. Time to change that. I did get out on the Labor Day Weekend to the Yegua Formation to hunt petrified wood with silverphoenix. As fate would have it, it was another 100 degree day in the Texas heat (same as our June trip, but I haven't posted anything about that one). Of course, I wasn't able to get to the location until the peak heat of the day. So, silverphoenix and I met up, geared up, loaded up with plenty of water, and struck out into the wilderness. There had been a previous rain event in the area, so we were hoping for some new material have been exposed. Right off the bat, he picks up a piece of snakewood. Arrgghh! Alas, it would be the only one for the trip. 15 minutes in and the sun was cooking us. The light weight ventilated gunny hat that was supposed to protect me from the sun was cooking my head. Had to put it in the backpack. I picked up some interesting pieces along the way and left them to pick up on the way back. Finally, we reached a shadier area and got some relief from the direct sun. The primary goal at this location was to locate center cores of petrified wood and then any thing else that was interesting. We found a few smaller ones and then came upon this larger one. You can see it on the right side of this picture. Back packs on the left for size comparision. Here is a closer picture. It may look deceptively small, but it is easily weighs 100 pounds or more. I seem to remember seeing this piece a year or so ago, but it would be very difficult to remove from this location, so I have added to my in situ field collection for now. Here is a nice core that I found along with a closer pic.