Polished Devonian Wood

[RomanK]

I have this specimen in my collection

and this week I asked somebody in Technical University to split it out and polish the cut surface.

I was a bit surprized cause have got quite poor result - very dark surface with cell structure you can see only through microscope

Some close-ups with diff. magnification

This picture I would see earlier without any polishing

[pleecan]

Interesting pictures of Devonian wood. What sort of magnification on the last photo 40X ? Have you been able to detect evidence of other fossils in the wood matrix such as insects / worms / bore holes etc ? Assuming this is late Devonain material.

After polish would chemical surface etching bring out details?

PL

Edited November 19, 2010 by pleecan

[RomanK]

Interesting pictures of Devonian wood. What sort of magnification on the last photo 40X ? Have you been able to detect evidence of other fossils in the wood matrix such as insects / worms / bore holes etc ? Assuming this is late Devonain material.

After polish would chemical surface etching bring out details?

PL

Hi pleecan, magnification is only 7X. Unfortunately there wasn't any other unclusion except this one

Yes that is upper Devonian layer.

I didn't use any chemicals to polish esp. etching, but who knows...

Edited November 19, 2010 by RomanK

[Auspex]

Highly vascular tissue; I wonder how "woody" it was?

[RomanK]

Highly vascular tissue; I wonder how "woody" it was?

It's a question Auspex. I comunicated with person who found a big fragment of the tree at the same site as me including the stem (part connected to root), cone (I shown this afternoon) and some fragments of branches. He thinks my specimen is a root fragment.

Other examples of his specimens

[Terry Dactyll]

RomanK.... I think its a great success.... Those cells really stand out under magnification and obviously tell you more about the type of wood it is.....Good idea to investigate....

[MikeD]

A pleasant surprise to see the cell structure.

[Shamalama]

Roman,

Cool wood and I think that if you maybe soak the wood for about ten minutes in bleach that it may lighten it up enough to see the cellular structure. I know that the Opalized wood from Wyoming tends to lighten up when treated this way.

[RomanK]

Roman,

Cool wood and I think that if you maybe soak the wood for about ten minutes in bleach that it may lighten it up enough to see the cellular structure. I know that the Opalized wood from Wyoming tends to lighten up when treated this way.

Thanks Dave, I'll think about that way to make the cell structure more obvious.

[RomanK]

Result after using a bleach

[pleecan]

Roman: Nice photo... Bleach etching does help.... if you have access to Metallurgical type microscope... you might want to try to capture an image.... Metallurgical microscopes are superior to regular stereo binocular microscopes with regards to optical resolution when applied at higher magnifications.

PL

[RomanK]

Roman: Nice photo... Bleach etching does help.... if you have access to Metallurgical type microscope... you might want to try to capture an image.... Metallurgical microscopes are superior to regular stereo binocular microscopes with regards to optical resolution when applied at higher magnifications.

PL

Thanks PL, I will try to do that.

[RomanK]

New detailes

Magnified

[MikeD]

Nice detail.

[Shamalama]

Hey, it worked! Woo-Hoo! That is some great cellular structure there Roman.

[RomanK]

Hey, it worked! Woo-Hoo! That is some great cellular structure there Roman.

Thank you Mike, thanks Dave for your useful recomendation!

Edited November 21, 2010 by RomanK