Need help on ID - suspect palm root ball

[Jared C]

I'm quite new to the forum and not entirely sure whether to I'm posting in the right place or in the right way, but hopefully this will be well received. 

 

On what I believe to be the Catahoula formation (this may be wrong, I'm quite an amateur still), on the border between Jasper and Sabine county in deep east Texas, on the bank of a sandy creek, we found what I believe to be the root ball of a tree, but I still need an ID. Furthermore, while petrified wood is commonplace in east Texas, I've never seen anything like this. Is it a unique find?

 

Here are some pictures below:

 

And some closer pictures, for detail:

 

 

On this next picture, the angle is a top view of what seems to be part of the "broken off" part - my hunch is that those little dots are where the tubes of xylum in the plant fossilized.

 

and one last photo of some more detail on the side of the fossil:

 

 

I'll gladly eat up any and all information that anyone can provide, whether it be an ID, age, unique features, fun facts, etc.! Hopefully I put this in the right place!

[DPS Ammonite]

Welcome to the Forum Jared.

Both the exterior and interior look like part of a palm trunk and not the rootball. Palm fibers, the small dots seen in a cross section of the trunk, are much smaller than roots.

 

Palm fiber and roots are usually not identifiable to genus and species in the traditional sense; instead they are placed in the form genera Palmoxylon for fiber and Rhizopalmoxylon for roots. Palm foliage can often be attributed to a genus and species of palm.

 

You can’t easily date palm wood and root fossils; you need to identify the formation first which then will give you a date. Use this map to find the formation. Let us know what you find out.

https://txpub.usgs.gov/txgeology/

 

See this article about palm fossils of the Catahoula Fm. in nearby Louisiana.

 

http://www.petrifiedwoodmuseum.org/OligoLouIntroduction.html

 

 

Here is another good website:

https://steurh.home.xs4all.nl/engpalm/epalmox.html

Edited December 5, 2020 by DPS Ammonite

[Jared C]

11 hours ago, DPS Ammonite said:

Both the exterior and interior look like part of a palm trunk and not the rootball

That's interesting! And I've been looking for something as interactive as the Texas geologic map you provided, thank you! The links were also very helpful.

 

One more thing of note is that upon further inspection, the precise spot I found the piece actually sits just above the catahoula and nash creek formations, sitting thinly on what seems to be the Yazoo formation. The info bubble provides that this formation is Eocene, not Oligocene like the Catahoula and Nash creek formations are. Very cool stuff

 

If I have further questions that go beyond an ID, such as why some pieces of petrified wood in the area fossilize white while others fossilize black, is there a space specifically for that? I may be quite young but I have quite some trouble navigating this website, sorry.

 

Also, I should probably add that this particular piece was found last summer

 

 

Edited December 5, 2020 by Jared C
Left out a detail about when I found it

[Kane]

We're always happy and enthusiastic to answer questions about fossils.  There is indeed a Questions and Answers subforum for just that very thing! http://www.thefossilforum.com/index.php?/forum/11-questions-amp-answers/

 

For now, the colour of the fossil certainly says something about the available minerals at the time of deposition, or even if it was diagenetically reworked. 

[DPS Ammonite]

19 minutes ago, Jared C said:

One more thing of note is that upon further inspection, the precise spot I found the piece actually sits just above the catahoula and nash creek formations, sitting thinly on what seems to be the Yazoo formation. The info bubble provides that this formation is Eocene, not Oligocene like the Catahoula and Nash creek formations are. Very cool stuff

Take the Texas geological maps (and most other maps), with at least a small grain of salt. The maps are generalized and often to not show the detail that you see in the field. The maps cannot easily show all the formations present in steep slopes such as this along streams.

 

The best way to figure out what formation/layer you are seeing is to look at a map to see what is in the area and then read the descriptions of the layers in the literature. Sometimes, especially in Texas, you can identify the layer by the types of fossils present. 

 

I do not know what formation the wood is from. Search for the name of the formation plus “palmoxylon” or “palm” to find info on palm fossils found nearby. For information and references on formations and other rock layers search for the layer name, such as Yazoo, plus “Geolex”.

https://ngmdb.usgs.gov/Geolex/UnitRefs/YazooRefs_4477.html

[Brandy Cole]

14 hours ago, DPS Ammonite said:

Welcome to the Forum Jared.

Both the exterior and interior look like part of a palm trunk and not the rootball. Palm fibers, the small dots seen in a cross section of the trunk, are much smaller than roots.

 

Palm fiber and roots are usually not identifiable to genus and species in the traditional sense; instead they are placed in the form genera Palmoxylon for fiber and Rhizopalmoxylon for roots. Palm foliage can often be attributed to a genus and species of palm.

 

You can’t easily date palm wood and root fossils; you need to identify the formation first which then will give you a date. Use this map to find the formation. Let us know what you find out.

https://txpub.usgs.gov/txgeology/

 

See this article about palm fossils of the Catahoula Fm. in nearby Louisiana.

 

http://www.petrifiedwoodmuseum.org/OligoLouIntroduction.html

 

 

Here is another good website:

https://steurh.home.xs4all.nl/engpalm/epalmox.html

Super helpful info for those of us trying to learn more about palm. Thank you!