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Nreekay

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Hey Folks,

We found this hunk this afternoon. Any idea why the piece of wood here in black is carbonized? It comes off when you rub it. Other pieces we found today are definitely fossilized, but this one is different. Any ideas?

E & B

94404BD6-98EA-4893-BB39-A1DD0A6D6FD3.jpeg

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in maryland there is more lignite or lignitized wood than there is petrified wood.  the wood is compressed and and makes a decent charcoal or a cheap coal.  it burns and was used historically in the iron furnaces of the 18 hundreds.  The arundel formation has ironstone, clay, abundant lignite and occasional early cretaceous fossils.  The ironstone was a form of  bog iron and was used to produce iron through the civil war afterwards it was not profitable to mine the iron, although clay was continued to be mined until more recently.    The ironstone will have impressions of wood, and occassionally fossils within it.  Slightly different conditions determine  whether one finds lignite or petrified wood.

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Ya... I don’t know. Within the hunk of rock there is, what appears to be, petrified wood and ...semi-petrified wood, if such a thing exists? But it seems like there are pieces of “normal wood” between all the rock.

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11 hours ago, val horn said:

Slightly different conditions determine  whether one finds lignite or petrified wood.

 

Just like in your own garden, different spots really do experience different environmental conditions even though they are quite close to one another.  So though it may be unusual, it is possible for materials in different states of preservation/fossilization to be co-located, especially with respect to wood.  

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I think what you see here is charcoal. If I'm not mistaken it is distinct from lignite but also very stable.

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2 hours ago, fossilcrazee said:

 

Just like in your own garden, different spots really do experience different environmental conditions even though they are quite close to one another.  So though it may be unusual, it is possible for materials in different states of preservation/fossilization to be co-located, especially with respect to wood.  

Thank you for your input! I appreciate it. I thought that it might be the case but didn’t know if such a thing/process was possible. I’m very curious how old it might be, but will never know.

E&B

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1 hour ago, Rockwood said:

I think what you see here is charcoal. If I'm not mistaken it is distinct from lignite but also very stable.

I’m pretty sure it is, too. I just didn’t know how a hunk of rock could have petrified wood and charcoal all rolled up into one, but just as Fossilcrazee explained in this thread I guess it is possible. Who knew?

Thanks for your reply.

E&B

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