Petrified Vine, Brazos County, Texas

[MikeD]

A couple of weekends ago, Oh-Man talked me into forgetting about my responsibilities for a while and taking a trip to look for some petrified wood. Lots of bluebonnets and other wildflowers to see along the way. We did some exploration in some new areas. Not much pet wood, but a lot of bones and nasty water. Someone had been dumping their deer and hog carcasses into the creek. After our scouting was done, we moved on to some familiar territory to hunt. The Middle Eocene, Yegua Formation can serve up a lot of petrified wood if you find the right spot.

I've been pretty busy lately, but finally managed to get a few pictures of the best finds of the day (except the piece of palm wood that Oh-Man reached out in front of me and snagged). My girlfriend's son had the best find of the day. I showed it to my local club's petrified wood expert. He believes it is a section of a vine. It has an extremely well preserved center core. The preservation of the vessel structure is amazing. The outer part is chalcedony.

I found this 1/3 round section with a nice chalcedony coating on the outside.

[lordpiney]

sweet stuff mike! if you ever wanna trade for some jersey stuff...let me know please.

[JimB88]

Nice pet wood, that vine is a rarity in the fossil record.

[Plantguy]

Yep Mike, got a rarity there. Thanks for sharing! Regards, Chris

[micropterus101]

The cell structure in that wood is the best I have seen! Great finds!

[Hawkeye]

That vine piece is fantastic, I'd be right back there looking for more!

[Roz]

Excellent finds there. The end section with the cells

is just amazing and can be seen so clearly..

[MikeD]

It is probably the best preservation that I have seen. I will be checking that area repeatedly in the future.

[Taxman56]

Nice Pictures. What the camera and setting you were using. Very Nice details

[Guest N.AL.hunter]

Thanks for this posting... I love seeing fossils that I have never seen before. Really nice specimen.

[tracer]

yes, that is a very interesting and cool specimen, and we're fortunate that you shared such good images of it with us.

the yegua just seems to occasionally have something really cool mixed in with all the generic wood. but i have to avoid collecting there as much as possible because i have proved to be incapable of not bringing home stuff, and it's too much and too big. the last two big pieces i brought home from that formation made it to the front doorstep area and are still there. walking past cool fossil wood just is difficult to do.

[MikeD]

Nice Pictures. What the camera and setting you were using. Very Nice details

Olympus SP500-UZ, built in super macro, automatic everything else, late afternoon sun on the hood of the car, hand held.

tracer, you should see my yard..... the Yegua stuff is so nice looking, you just have to pick it up..... and I'm going back to the Jasper area in a couple of weeks for the third "last" (and Ron might actually be serious this time) trip..... I can visualize 500 pounds of wood in the back of the Rodeo..... :hot:

[Oh-Man]

Adam didn't know what he had until I took a look. Then Mike grabbed the loupe! It is really an awesome little piece. Mike and I were both jealous!

Ironically we had collectively walked over the immediate area about 25 times before Adam saw it. What I wouldn't pay for "kid eyes" at this point in time!