Opalized Fossilized Spruce Limb

[Royal peacock opal mine]

Miocene 

Spruce tree limb -Conifer 

Found in Virgin Valley, NV 

Humbolt County Museum 

This Spruce branch was buried in conditions that prevented it from rotting out at all, instead it was fossilized where it sat for who knows how long until the hydrated ash (Si02 Nh20) worked itself down whatever it could get through (or some say the silica gel was forced up from all the geothermal activities) finding cavities along the way to call home for the next X amount of years.

 

this piece was donated for the reason that there was barely anything on display. Been wanting to do it for a long time anyways so thought better late than never.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[RJB]

Purty nice hunk of wood!

 

RB

[digit]

Spectacular! Please re-post your contribution in our growing gallery here:

 

http://www.thefossilforum.com/index.php?/topic/102935-fossil-contributions-to-paleontology-the-gallery/

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

 

 

[Brandy Cole]

That's a beautiful piece!

[jpc]

Nice!  How do you know ir is spruce?

[Royal peacock opal mine]

@jpc we’ve had some limbs tested in the past. This one looks most like the one that was identified as spruce. There is lots of spruce cones found in the area and when you find redwood it is clearly red/pink in color. So I’m confident to say spruce. If not spruce it’s definitely a conifer