Plant? shell? or mineral?

[hndmarshall]

Found North of Houston Texas USA in gravel load from Brazos River

at first glance it seems to be a shell like pattern on the stone {why I picked it up}

but the pattern seems to be the whole stone so thought perhaps compressed fossilized plant concretion?

possible fossil wood?

pulled out my macro camera and studied further....now I am stumped

more photos to follow.....

[hndmarshall]

the entire stone is like this...is this mineral or some type of fossil?

[digit]

Aren't mystery pieces fun? You know there will be a bit of learning associated with finding out the identity of pieces like this.

 

From the overall view of this piece I would have thought some sort of radiating crystal (geological) formation. Scrolling down through the macro photos I started thinking possibly coral but the final photos made me think more of petrified wood. I believe Texas is known for having some nice petrified palmwood (Palmoxylon). I wonder if that might be what this is? It's a lead at least to do some online image searches.

 

Cool piece.

 

 

Cheers.

 

-Ken

[Rockwood]

My copy of Ancient Forests came last week. I don't see an exact match in Palmoxylon, but I think it must be close.

[abyssunder]

What I see, looks plant material for me. Very nice!

 

[Creek - Don]

Found same type of petrified rock in North Texas.  Is this it?  

 

Fossil wood of the Engelhardiae (Juglandaceae) from the Eocene of North America.