Petrified wood in Massachusetts?

[LaFancyy]

Found this neat little rock in a stream out in some woods while looking for agate. Noticed it had some unusual markings on the side simmilar to how a bug goes under bark, also some faint rings on the top. Made me think it was maybe petrified wood? I know next to nothing about fossils though so I thought I should prolly ask the experts :).  It is about 1x1x1cm. Found in Littleton Mass. Anyone have any ideas? Please forgive me if this is just a rock! Just thought it looked woody.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What about this guy? Found this when I was digging in the garden. Maybe a foot or two down in Salem, Ma

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Pliosaur]

This to me doesn't seem like petrified wood but rather a limestone or sandstone with irregular line formations, the most common way to identify petrified wood is to use a microscope to examine if the piece has any bark patterns such as rings or grains, these are known as tracheid (wood cell) patterns. Different types of wood can be defined by their cell shapes and patterns. Another way to tell would be the weight, most petrified wood pieces would weigh significantly less than a stone or rock of the same size. 

[Rockwood]

I495 the only way to get through Boston.  I doubt there would be petrified wood there though. This looks like a sedimentary rock to me. It is likely metamorphosed to some degree.

3 hours ago, Pliosaur said:

Another way to tell would be the weight, most petrified wood pieces would weigh significantly less than a stone or rock of the same size.

In my experience this is seldom true. The notable exception being coalified/carbonized wood. Silicified wood is quite heavy. 

[hemipristis]

I tried zooming in on the photos, but the resolution dropped.  

 

You're in an area of mixed metamorphic and igneous rocks, so petrified wood is unlikely. My guess would be that this is tremolite. a whitish metamorphic mineral associated with serpentine--a green metamorphic rock that occurs in your area.  Serpentine bodies are very interesting stuff, and mineralogically fascinating.

[Pliosaur]

6 hours ago, Rockwood said:

I495 the only way to get through Boston.  I doubt there would be petrified wood there though. This looks like a sedimentary rock to me. It is likely metamorphosed to some degree.

In my experience this is seldom true. The notable exception being coalified/carbonized wood. Silicified wood is quite heavy. 

Although likely for larger sized pieces, I think in this case, because the piece is so small it could be discerned by the weight. The heaviness of the material is generally owned to its composition. Beyond that, the heaviness is also dictated by how densely packed the molecules are with the material in question so it really depends on the petrification process and the type of minerals replacing the organic material. 

[Rockwood]

32 minutes ago, Pliosaur said:

Although likely for larger sized pieces, I think in this case, because the piece is so small it could be discerned by the weight. The heaviness of the material is generally owned to its composition. Beyond that, the heaviness is also dictated by how densely packed the molecules are with the material in question so it really depends on the petrification process and the type of minerals replacing the organic material. 

So what type of wood preservation do you find lighter/volume (argument stipulated to) than the average rock ? And while were at it, what is an average rock ? 

[Terminal Stareasaurus]

On 6/20/2023 at 6:08 PM, juniper01970 said:

What about this guy? Found this when I was digging in the garden. Maybe a foot or two down in Salem, Ma

          

That's definitely wood.

[Andúril Flame of the West]

To me the first specimen appears to have a geologic origin, but I agree that your second specimen is likely a piece of petrified wood. When I first looked at this piece it seemed to look pretty similar to a piece that @EMP recovered in Maryland and identified as a piece of Pleistocene aged petrified wood. Here is the photograph @EMP took of that specimen along with the LINK to the post:

 

 

I am not saying that this is definitively a piece of Pleistocene petrified wood; it simply is likely to be petrified wood and resembles a piece found in a location not too far from you. I am not familiar with the geology of your area so I would wait for more experienced members to give more information on this piece. 
 

Congratulations on this interesting find and hopefully you will find more specimens on future digs!

[EMP]

I'm not super familiar with New England's geology, but to me the first specimen looks like a weathered rock and the second specimen looks like it could be a piece of fossil wood. The eastern part of Massachusetts is in the Coastal Plain and they have found pieces of fossil wood there, especially in the area around Cape Cod and the Triassic rocks along the Connecticut River: Gleba_Mass_Fossil-Min_Localities.pdf (umass.edu) I think Salem is pretty far from Cape Cod, though? 

 

Another thing to consider is that if you found it in your garden, it could also have been dropped/placed there by a previous landowner or it could have been transported from elsewhere due to glaciation. Considering it's also from the Salem area, and Salem I believe has mostly igneous/metamorphic bedrock, it's likely that it isn't original to the locality. It does have the look of Cretaceous-Quaternary aged fossil wood common in other parts of the Coastal Plain, like in Maryland. My guess is it'd probably be from within that time range. 

[Rockwood]

10 hours ago, juniper01970 said:

What about this guy? Found this when I was digging in the garden. Maybe a foot or two down in Salem, Ma

I don't believe this is wood. It does look very similar to poorly preserved wood, but I don't think the indications are clear enough to assume that it is wood given the context. 

[Andúril Flame of the West]

20 hours ago, Rockwood said:

I don't believe this is wood. It does look very similar to poorly preserved wood, but I don't think the indications are clear enough to assume that it is wood given the context. 

Interesting assessment. I agree that it resembles petrified wood and, just out of curiosity, what features of the specimen would make you lean away from that identification? 

[Rockwood]

5 hours ago, Andúril Flame of the West said:

 what features of the specimen would make you lean away from that identification? 

Actually it's the ones that I don't see. I don't need to prove that  it's not wood. It needs to proven that it is wood before it can be called wood. Metamorphism and tectonic folding are to be expected in that area. Wood is what needs extraordinary evidence there.   

[EMP]

On 6/22/2023 at 6:28 AM, Rockwood said:

Actually it's the ones that I don't see. I don't need to prove that  it's not wood. It needs to proven that it is wood before it can be called wood. Metamorphism and tectonic folding are to be expected in that area. Wood is what needs extraordinary evidence there.   

 

I agree I'm on the fence about it, but I'm not seeing any clear banding you'd expect from metamorphic rock, and it's weathering pattern isn't in line with a schist or a non-foliated metamorphic rock. There are some black lines on the end of the specimen, but from the photos it doesn't look like a layer you'd find in, say, gneiss. I thought about it possibly being a rhyolite or some kind of felsic rock, but again the weathering pattern is pretty strange for that. I'd lean towards wood, possibly a piece someone dropped/threw out, since it was found far from where fossil wood typically occurs in Massachusetts. 

[Fossildude19]

On 6/20/2023 at 11:21 PM, Andúril Flame of the West said:

To me the first specimen appears to have a geologic origin, but I agree that your second specimen is likely a piece of petrified wood.

 

It is one item,  as stated by the OP:

"Found this neat little rock in a stream out in some woods while looking for agate. "

 

The area is not known for petrified wood, and I am pretty sure it is just a rock. 

 

[EMP]

Just now, Fossildude19 said:

 

It is one item,  as stated by the OP:

"Found this neat little rock in a stream out in some woods while looking for agate. "

 

The area is not known for petrified wood, and I am pretty sure it is just a rock. 

 

 

There was a second specimen posted by another user which looked more like wood. The first specimen is, I agree, probably a rock/mineral. 

[Andúril Flame of the West]

2 hours ago, Fossildude19 said:

 

It is one item,  as stated by the OP:

"Found this neat little rock in a stream out in some woods while looking for agate. "

 

The area is not known for petrified wood, and I am pretty sure it is just a rock. 

 

That’s very interesting. I do not know what you can see from your view, but it appears that the OP’s post including photographs of the second specimen has disappeared (I believe it may have been split out into a separate Fossil ID posting after I wrote the comment). I wrote this comment in reference to that now-absent post, but if you look at @Donna Straw’s comment you can see images of the second specimen within the quote. 
 

I agree that the first specimen is not wood and while the images of the second specimen were certainly more convincing, I must concur that there is not much evidence pointing to it actually being would other than superficial similarities. 

Edited June 24, 2023 by Andúril Flame of the West

[juniper01970]

Not sure what happened to my original post... strange.  But, yes. @Donna Straw's post shows the images. 

[Fossildude19]

I've replaced the images in the original post.  Weird.

But, I do agree - the second item does look like wood.

[juniper01970]

Turns out mod split the topic

[patelinho7]

Yes I agree with you all, first piece looks like rock, second piece looks very similar to petrified wood. Only problem, like many of you have mentioned, is that it makes little sense for petrified wood to be found there. I used to have family near-ish to Salem. There’s nothing in the area. All igneous/metamorphic processes. @EMP’s assessment of it being potentially left behind by a past landowner seems accurate. Not sure how else if could’ve gotten there.

[debivort]

I searched for records of petrified wood being transported to MA as glacial erratics, but couldn't find anything definitive.

[Pfaff]

Hi All, new member. I joined the forum specifically to comment on this thread, which I came across researching glacial transport of sedimentary material in eastern Mass. 

In fact, the presence of petrified wood in the cobble mixes of Cape Cod and the SE MA beaches has been known for some time, though not widely. The source was tentatively traced to surficial exposures in Middleborough, MA., with a hypothesized exposure further east now covered by the Massachusetts Bay. 

 

The rock west of Boston and north of Narragansett Bay - the Narragansett Bay Group - preserve a number of depositional basins from the middle and upper Pennsylvanian that include anthracite coal seams and associated organics, as well as later fossil bearing red beds. Here's the first mention in the literature, by the respected C.A. Kaye: 

CLIFFORD A KAYE; BOULDER TRAIN OF SILICIFIED PALEOZOIC WOOD, SOUTHEASTERN MASSACHUSETTS. GSA Bulletin 1964;; 75 (3): 233–236. doi: https://doi.org/10.1130/0016-7606(1964)75[233:BTOSPW]2.0.CO;2