Petrified wood

[hndmarshall]

My husband found this on one of the job sights in College Station, Texas ....there was quite a bit of it found a few hundred pounds of it actually

 my husband brought what he could home a couple hundred pounds. I kept this one and he gave the rest away for yard ornaments to one of his coworkers

....kinda wish I had kept more of it but we were on the road at the time and had no place to put it.

 

I think it looks like some type of pine....any ideas on what type of wood it is???.

[ynot]

Nice piece.

To identify wood  You need to look at the cellular structures under magnification.

 

[Oxytropidoceras]

To specifically identify the genus and spies of petrified wood

a person needs to radial, transverse, and tangential petrographic

thin sections of the specimen.  How this is done is illustratedby:

 

Wheeler, E.A., Lehman, T.M. and Gasson, P.E., 1994. Javelinoxylon, 

an Upper Cretaceous dicotyledonous tree from Big Bend National 

Park, Texas, with presumed malvalean affinities. American Journal 

of Botany, 81(6), pp.703-710.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/322838133_J_avelinoxylon_an_Upper_Cretaceous_dicotyledonous_tree_from_Big_Bend_National_Park_Texas_with_presumed_malvalean_affinities

 

The general types of wood can be roughly determined using

polished faces of cut specimens as illsutrated in:

 

Wallace, R., Discovery and Analysis of Petrified Wood in 

the San Jacinto River.

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.524.1287&rep=rep1&type=pdf

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.524.1287

 

Scott Singleton of the Houston Gem and Mineral Society has

published his research concerning Texas petrified wood. His

papers include:

 

Singleton, S.W., 2017. Occurrence of Fossil Woods in Texas, 

Primarily the Cretaceous and Tertiary. Gulf Coast Association 

of Geological Societies Transactions, v. 67, p. 305-330.

https://www.gcags.org/exploreanddiscover/2017/00210_singleton.pdf

 

Singleton, S.W., 2008, Petrified wood in the Miocene Fleming

Formation, Jasper County, Texas. Gulf Coast Association 

of Geological Societies Transactions, v. 58, p. 797–814.

https://hgms.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Jasper-Miocene-Wood-GCAGS-2008.pdf

 

Also associated leaf fossils can be specifically identified.

 

DeVore, M.L., Pigg, K.B., Dilcher, D.L. and Freile, D., 2014. Catahoulea 

grahamii, a new genus and species of fagaceous involucres from the 

Oligocene Catahoula Formation, central Texas, and the middle Eocene 

Claiborne Formation of Kentucky and Tennessee, USA. Paleobotany

and Biogrography, A Festschrift for Alan Graham in His 80th Year. 

Missouri Botanical Garden Press, St. Louis, Missouri, pp.39-50.

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/David_Dilcher

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265865738_Catahoulea_grahamii_a_New_Genus_and_Species_of_Fagaceous_Involucres_from_the_Oligocene_Catahoula_Formation_Central_Texas_and_the_Middle_Eocene_Claiborne_Formation_of_Kentucky_and_Tennessee_USA

 

Yours,

 

Paul H.

 

[ynot]

17 minutes ago, Oxytropidoceras said:

To specifically identify the genus and spies of petrified wood

a person needs to radial, transverse, and tangential petrographic

thin sections of the specimen.  How this is done is illustratedby:

 

Yeah sure, if You want to get technical about it.

[hndmarshall]

micro close up of the grain of my wood

[Misha]

18 minutes ago, hndmarshall said:

micro close up of the grain of my wood

I think you would need thin sections of the wood and look through a microscope to properly identify

[digit]

It's a beautiful piece of petrified wood. Finding the exact species of tree that was transformed into this beautiful fossil may be possible given that it seems to have very nice micro-structure preserved. You might consider contacting the geology department of Texas A&M (you are in College Station). For me I wouldn't be too worried about trying to identify it to a species name but would just label it as "Petrified Wood". Let us know if you do manage to show it to some local experts on the fossil plant material in your area. We'd love to learn what this turns out to be.

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[hndmarshall]

1 hour ago, digit said:

It's a beautiful piece of petrified wood. Finding the exact species of tree that was transformed into this beautiful fossil may be possible given that it seems to have very nice micro-structure preserved. You might consider contacting the geology department of Texas A&M (you are in College Station). For me I wouldn't be too worried about trying to identify it to a species name but would just label it as "Petrified Wood". Let us know if you do manage to show it to some local experts on the fossil plant material in your area. We'd love to learn what this turns out to be.

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

no not located in Collage Station that is where the wood was found I am located west of Houston Texas in Brookshire

[Oxytropidoceras]

Contact the Paleontology Section of the Houston Gem and Mineral Society.

https://hgms.org/sections/paleontology/

 

Scott Singleton, who is a member of it, could likely help you with your question.

 

Also there is:

 

Zuhl Collection of American Petrified Wood at the Houston Museum of Natural Science

By Neal Immega and Scott Singleton, Texas Paleontology Series – Publication No. 8

https://hgms.org/publications/paleo-books/

 

Yours,

 

Paul H.