Peace River Petrified Wood?

[Bone Daddy]

Inspired by @Harry Pristis's recent post in the member sales forum, I found this oddball in my sifter on monday's hunt. It's dense and mineralized. It "clanks" when you tap it. However, it has a very organic shape and a wood-grain texture. I have found the silicified white variety previously, but could this be an example of phosphatized or something other local variety of fossilized wood? I've found a lot of river-tumbled bone chunks and ivory chunks, but this one seems different. Not quite bone, not quite antler, not quite ivory, and I am fairly certain it's not just a rock.

 

 

 

 

[Rockwood]

Can you give us a little more in the way of perspectives ?

[Harry Pristis]

Petrified wood is to be found in the Peace River, and Bone Daddy may well have a piece.  I think this is the silicified wood which is found in the abandoned gun pits of the phosphate mines -- the wood that I described as "skeletonized."  White "skeletonized" wood specimens from abandoned gun pits in South Florida phosphate mines are silicified.
 
This wood is primarily mineralized with chalcedony, with small amounts of crystalline quartz in the interior spaces of some cells. X-ray fluorescence spectra show that silica is the only major component in the wood. No relict carbon was evident in X-ray spectra or Scanning Electron Microscope views. The light color is consistent with silicification; phosphatized wood is typically brown or black in color.

 

Here's a piece from the Peace:

And, here's a piece from a gun pit:

 

[Rob Russell]

2 hours ago, Harry Pristis said:

Petrified wood is to be found in the Peace River, and Bone Daddy may well have a piece.  I think this is the silicified wood which is found in the abandoned gun pits of the phosphate mines -- the wood that I described as "skeletonized."  White "skeletonized" wood specimens from abandoned gun pits in South Florida phosphate mines are silicified.
 
This wood is primarily mineralized with chalcedony, with small amounts of crystalline quartz in the interior spaces of some cells. X-ray fluorescence spectra show that silica is the only major component in the wood. No relict carbon was evident in X-ray spectra or Scanning Electron Microscope views. The light color is consistent with silicification; phosphatized wood is typically brown or black in color.

 

Here's a piece from the Peace:

And, here's a piece from a gun pit:

 

Cool stuff, Harry.  What is the age of that material?  Pliocene?  

[Harry Pristis]

I think it must be Mio-Pliocene, a time when major rivers were cutting down the Ocala Uplift and draining into the shallow bay in the South.

[Bone Daddy]

I'll shoot some better photos of this one and a couple of other suspects in tomorrow's sun - my indoor lighting for photos is not good (as you can see!).

 

 

[Rob Russell]

3 hours ago, Harry Pristis said:

I think it must be Mio-Pliocene, a time when major rivers were cutting down the Ocala Uplift and draining into the shallow bay in the South.

Very interesting. Those rivers becoming the tool of rapid burial. A reoccurring process we see throughout the eons. The same process led to the massive coal seams of the Pennsylvania, and the amazing deposits in the Francis Creek Shale. As you are well aware. Very cool! Thanks for filling in some of the blanks that led to Florida’s earlier fossil beds.