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What is petrified wood? Properties, extraction, application and price of petrified wood. Petrified trees

Standing upright. They intersect horizontal layers of sedimentary rock. It is sedimentary because it was formed from the remains of plants settling to the bottom of the swamps.

They died, fell and rotted. According to scientists, it took approximately 100,000 years to form 10 meters of fossil. Trees standing horizontally in the rock reach a height of 15-30 meters.

If the calculations were correct, the trunks should have rotted faster than they would have time to petrify, being replaced by sedimentary masses. It turns out that during some periods of the development of the earth, coal formation accelerated thousands of times, while other periods did not occur at all? While scientists are struggling with this question, let's study what it is petrified wood, what properties it has and whether it has practical application.

What is petrified wood?

Stone "Petrified Wood", like coal, is considered a fossil. This is also the name given to plants that lived in the past, but have survived to this day, having been mineralized.

In other words, organic matter was replaced by inorganic matter. This is possible when the plant is buried under landslides, layers of ash that settles on the ground after volcanic eruptions.

Both options, by the way, lead to rapid rock formation and could serve as an explanation for the 15-meter trunks petrified in vertical position, if the surrounding trees were not coal. He cannot come down from the mountains, or fall from heaven.

Burying trees cuts off access to oxygen and microorganisms. As a result, the latter cannot process living tissue, and the absence blocks the process of decay.

The plants seem to be preserved. Time goes by. Chemicals from the burial mass seep into the wood tissue, replacing them. It is possible to preserve the texture of the plant.

It is not violated, and, that is, silicon-containing. If the replacement minerals are , and , the structure of the tree is lost, turning into a single piece. Only the shape of the trunk and, sometimes, the annual growths are preserved.

They can also take the place of living tissues, , , . In general, the list consists of 60 minerals. They can be combined in one trunk, making its properties ambiguous, because the physical and chemical parameters of fossils directly depend on the filling material.

Properties of petrified wood

Properties The occurrence of petrified trees also depends on the type of plant. Thus, inclusions are found in coniferous trunks. That is, not only the tissue of the tree was fossilized, but also its resin. Not found in deciduous fossils.

Meanwhile, fossilized resin can become electrified and is softer than most minerals embedded in plant cells. For amber they give only 2 points. The average value of petrified wood is from 4 to 6 points.

Fossils are influenced by their mineral composition. The same amber will give flashes. makes wood oxide, or brown. Fossils owe their green and blue colors to , and .

– the reason for fossil trunks. If manganese is in oxide, the material becomes . So, just look at photo of petrified wood to calculate the basis of its composition.

Mining petrified wood

It makes sense to look for fossils in areas that were once rich. coniferous forests. Deciduous trees contain little silica. In conifer cells it is present during life. This helps the tissues to mineralize.

The photo shows a petrified wood ball

Next, we look at the area. It is logical to look among coal, since its origin is biogenic. Justified, also look among. They are formed at the bottom of reservoirs from settling shells, in general, carbonate-containing material.

Sometimes trees fall into the water and gradually sink down. Diving for fossils is labor intensive. More often, fossils are searched for in areas of drained reservoirs where limestones have come to the surface.

From the cleared areas let us remember petrified tree park in Lesbos. This is a Greek island. In the geopark, it shows trees that grew about 20,000,000 years ago. On Lesvos they were covered with ash. The island is located at the junction of lithospheric plates.

In the old days, volcanic activity in the area was more active than today. The layer of ash from a series of eruptions was almost 40 meters. A similar fossil park was cleared of ashes in the United States. There geological monument is located in Arizona.

Applications of petrified wood

Petrified wood buy mono in the form, for example, of a box. Benches, tables, and vases are made from mineralized trunks. Their cost is often close to the age of the trunks, but not in years, but.

However, there are buyers, because the products are exclusive and “charged” with the energy of millennia. Petrified wood shells, like bathrooms made from it, are environmentally friendly and durable.

Pictured are petrified wood shells

The list of products also includes columns. Sometimes, untreated trunks are used for them. This gives a certain carelessness, naturalness and, at the same time, is not devoid of chic.

Petrified wood products can be found among . Fossils are inserted into them, replaced by minerals, for example,

The photo shows an Aries figurine made of petrified wood

Because wood is preserved, frozen in time, fossils are expected to prolong life. That is, fossils increase the tone of the body, charge with energy, and therefore add years. This is what litotherapists say, although statistics are not kept. It's easier to understand the prices of petrified wood.

Petrified wood price

On petrified wood price depends on the replacement minerals and the form of the product. So, a slab, that is, a smooth plate, 1.5 meters wide and 3 meters long costs about 100,000.

For a cross-section suitable for a tabletop, 40 centimeters wide, from the same quartzite they ask for 20,000-30,000 rubles. If you process a piece up to a 30-centimeter decorative bowl, it will grow to 55,000-68,000 rubles.

The photo shows petrified wood products

Even for a souvenir 9 centimeters high they ask for around 9,000 rubles. A 10-centimeter piece, suitable for , is set for 2,000-3,000. For tumbling, that is, rolled pebbles, 2-2.5 centimeters in diameter, they ask for 300-400 rubles apiece.

In the United States of America there is an unusual national park, called Petrified Forest, which translates as petrified forest. This is one of the largest concentrations of petrified trees on the planet... It is noteworthy that most of the trees even retained their structure. But we will not talk about the entire national park, but one of its pearls - Agate House. Let's take a closer look at it...

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Eget House(English) Agate House, lit. The Agate House is a partially restored residential complex located in Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona. The houses of the Pueblo Indians were made entirely of petrified wood. The 8-room pueblo was constructed around the year 900, or during the Pueblo III period of the Pecos chronology. Petrified wood was held together with clay mortar.

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According to research scientists, this building was erected by the ancestors of the Pueblo Indians who now live in these places. Moreover, this happened in the time interval between 900 and 1200. The then inhabitants of the prairies and deserts North America They actively used petrified wood to create tools and, of course, in construction. Agate House consists of eight rooms, which confirms that this is not a temporary home.

The restoration of the ruins was carried out in 1933-1934 by the Civilian Conservation Corps environment under the direction of C.B. Cosgrove Jr. of the Anthropology Laboratory of the New Mexico Museum. A new roof was built over room 7. The walls of room 2 were rebuilt so that their height was 1.5 meters, but without a roof, and the remaining walls were rebuilt so that their height was between 1.8 and 3 meters. In the same park is a piece of modern Pueblo art, the Painted Desert Inn.

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...Soon we noticed near the road, on the slope of the side of the basin, a giant trunk of a petrified tree. There were six pieces in this eleven-meter log, about a meter in diameter, broken into almost equal parts. Iron layers with red streaks stained the dark gray, cast-iron color and appearance of the surface of the trunk, which at the same time retained the complete resemblance of dilapidated and soaked wood. Replaced by silicon and iron, the wood forever retained the appearance with which the log sank in sediment, brought from afar by the river, eighty million years ago. Now water, wind, sun and frost destroyed the loose rocks around, and the trunk remained, as if on a platter, on a gently sloping slope, indestructible and so heavy that the forces of erosion could not move it.

For a long time we admired the giant of the disappeared forests, which had lain in the ground for such an unimaginable time. I dreamed of taking the entire trunk for the Museum of the Academy of Sciences in Moscow - such large and well-preserved trunks are very rare. However, there was no way to take even one of the pieces, which weighed more than a ton each. So I limited myself to just taking a few pictures. Further south, the hills were completely covered with pieces of petrified tree trunks. Thinner than the first giant we found, these pieces were scattered like a fallen woodpile.

Protruding twigs or roots on the stumps created the illusion of real wood. Only to the touch, the heavy, sharp, glass-like fragments of scattered trunks showed that this forest was only a stone ghost of the real thing. The correctly layered structure of the wood indicated the identity of the trunks coniferous trees, perhaps a group of swamp cypresses, still growing in coastal tropical swamps, just as the ancient ginkgo grows in Japan, and araucaria in the mountains South America and South-West Asia, red iron ore in our Lankaran...

Reluctantly, I had to leave all the variety of trunks piled up in disarray - the short day was drawing to a close...
Ivan Efremov. Road of the winds.

Petrified wood is a material formed from trees that grew in past geological eras. Such “rarities” can tell a lot. Taking into account the age of the trees, they can be used to trace the process of evolution of tree crops certain type, learn about the time of their growth and the climate of past centuries.

How does the petrification process of trees occur?

IN natural conditions Wood residues decay and are processed by microorganisms. This happens when there is free access of air. But in some cases, a dead tree is not completely destroyed. This happens when it is buried under sediment (volcanic ash, landslides, landslides, glacial moraine, etc.), which prevents the supply of oxygen. As a result, the wood does not deteriorate, but petrifies over time due to replacement organic matter minerals. Physical properties wood is completely changed, and it turns into a very dense and durable material.

In most cases, the organic wood tissue is replaced by silica minerals (silicified wood). Mostly chalcedony or quartz. Such fossils preserve anatomical structure wood. Less commonly, you can find so-called marbled wood, the main replacement minerals in which are dolomite, calcite or siderite. In addition, replacement elements can be gypsum, barite, jet, etc. More than 60 minerals are known to take part in the formation of wood fossils.

Basic properties of petrified wood

The mineral is characterized by a glassy or waxy luster, conchoidal fracture, and lack of cleavage. The hardness of petrified wood, depending on the replacement minerals, ranges from 4 to 6. On one cut you can find areas that differ significantly in structure and color.

Due to impurities present in sediments or water, fossilized material can have a wide variety of colors. Thus, carbon gives color; iron oxide - red, yellow or brown; copper, chromium and cobalt - green or blue; manganese - orange or pink; manganese oxide - black or yellow.

Among the petrified trees you can find both coniferous and deciduous species. Coniferous fossils include inclusions of amber.

Texture varieties

Wood that has been petrified may have different texture. The reason for this is many factors. Let's take a closer look at the existing textural varieties of petrified wood, as well as how they were formed.

Homogeneous fossils

They include varieties that are characterized by an almost uniform structure with different colors. The stone has a vaguely manifested zoning, which is not explained by the difference between the colors of the growth rings, but only by the presence of lines that limit them. The most famous representative of this group of fossils is the so-called opal wood, which is distinguished by a very light color (can be almost white) and usually retains its primary structure.

Petrified wood: lens texture

This texture develops in the process of filling large cells and pores of wood with chalcedony, opal, and iron hydroxides. Lenses are characterized by linear orientation. In some cases, it is emphasized by iron hydroxides, developing in the same directions.

spotted tree

It is the most common type of petrified wood. It is characterized by an opal-chalcedony composition with a significant admixture of iron hydroxides. Moreover, the ratio of these three components is variable, which explains the uneven spotty color and texture of the mineral. Sometimes the spotting is caused by relics of wood, which replaces chalcedony, preserving the outlines of the cells against the background of the opal mass. This stone is characterized by a color that includes various shades of brown.

Concentrically zoned petrified wood

The material is characterized by alternating opal or opal-chalcedony concentric stripes of different colors. At the same time, they emphasize the pattern of tree rings in a cross section. The longitudinal section has a linear-banded texture, which is quite clearly defined.

Jet petrification

This petrified wood has a carbon-opal or carbon-carbonate composition. The lines of the growth rings are clearly defined and form a concentric (in some places wavy-concentric) pattern. In terms of decorative qualities, black petrified wood is compared to black jade or jet.

Where are tree fossils found?

Petrified trees are most often found in areas where volcanic eruptions have occurred. The most famous place where this unique material was discovered is the so-called “Petrified Forest”, located in the state of Arizona and which is one of the US national parks (since 1962). The length of the petrified trunks reaches 65 m, diameter - 3 m.

There are also a number of other petrified wood deposits located in various parts of the world. The most famous and significant fossilized forests are located in Argentina, Brazil, Belgium, Greece, Canada, India, New Zealand, Russia, Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Georgia, Armenia, etc. Many territories are either natural monuments.

Applications of petrified wood

Petrified wood is a stone that has been used since ancient times as a raw material for making jewelry. The demand for them remains at a high level today. This decorative stone is very easy to process. It is perfectly cut, ground and polished, resulting in a unique glass sheen. When processed, it does not lose its wood texture.

Varieties of petrified wood that have a fine contrasting pattern are used to make inserts and small jewelry, such as beads, bracelets, etc. Decorative stone with clearly defined lines of growth rings is especially valuable. When making jewelry, such patterns are often combined with precious metals, other stones and glass.

Petrified wood is also used in the production of various souvenirs and interior decoration items. These can be pens, ashtrays, vases, boxes, shelves, countertops and much more. For the manufacture of such products, a material is often used that is characterized by less pronounced zoning and has a spotted-striped or large-spotted pattern. The stone is highly prized by collectors, given that the trees are millions of years old.

It should be noted that petrified wood is considered a material with special medicinal properties. It helps a person cope with stress and combat stress, increases the vitality of the body, and protects against infectious diseases and injuries. According to folk medicine, a die made from petrified wood can relieve pain. To do this, you just need to apply it to the sore spot. In Mongolian medicine, since ancient times, for arthritis and similar diseases, petrified wood (in the form of planks) from the Gobi Desert has been applied to the joints.

Real trees! - recalls Yuri Konstantinovich. - Both the structure and the annual rings are visible. In some places, the bark was even preserved, also petrified. The lower part of the trunks was reddish-brown, in some places the color of charcoal, and the middle was ashen.

The bailiff began to question the road workers. They just shrugged their shoulders - they said they found one log here, another there. And there is a lot of such goodness in a career. It turns out that last summer they dug up a whole forest of petrified trees. And they abandoned it along the highway as unnecessary.

The two of us barely lifted a small one-meter log with a diameter of about half a meter,” Alexander Pavlovich is surprised. - And to load a whole trunk, six healthy men would be needed.

Now the Chita Geological Museum is trying to determine what type of ancient log this was. Such huge ones have never been seen here before. Although fragments of petrified wood are found in the Trans-Baikal Territory - along the banks of the Ingoda, Chitinka, Onon, and Argun rivers. And not ordinary pines and spruces. Stones are found on the territory of Transbaikalia rainforests, which belong to the Jurassic and early Cretaceous periods.

You can determine the age and type of a tree by its cones and leaves, which also turn to stone, says Sofya SINITSKA, director of the Chitinsky Geological Research Center state university, Doctor of Geological and Mineralogical Sciences. “It’s just very difficult to do this using the fragments of the trunk.” But we have found trees that are the ancestors of the modern palm tree. Their leaves were food for dinosaurs, whose bones, by the way, we also dug up. But still, there are much fewer palm trees in our region than other forests.

140 million years ago

Tropical forests in Transbaikalia really grew. And there were dinosaurs in them. Even if it’s not as dense as in neighboring Mongolia. But the heat was African.

Why didn't the trees rot? And having lain underground for millions of years, they look as if they were recently felled?

The story seems to be this. Grew 140 million years ago dense forest. Until suddenly a catastrophe happened - a flood, or a mudflow came down from the mountains, or a hurricane bent him to the ground. But it wasn’t pulled out by the roots. The forest was flooded. The water deposited clay, sand, and gravel. Air did not penetrate inside; the salt ate all the wood tissue. And the forest became stone and heavy. The composition of petrified wood is ordinary flint.

Mineral salts displace organic compounds, and the wood turns to stone, while retaining its shape, bark, and sometimes even leaves, says Alexander LESNYANSKY, geologist. - Stone trees can be very beautiful in terms of jewelry, especially those with knots and rings. In China they sell such polished stumps - impressive. Like small crafts, it is difficult to understand that these stones were once plants.

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The most ancient monuments

The most famous forest of petrified trees in the world, which is located in national park Petrified Forest. It is located in Arizona and covers an area of 38 thousand hectares. The wood here became chalcedony and opal. About 12 tons of fossils disappear from the park every year - visitors take away the fragments to souvenirs , despite the fact that cars are regularly searched at the exit.

Petrified forests are also found on the Greek island of Lesbos (Cenozoic), in Argentina, Patagonia (Mesozoic, Jurassic), in Egypt, near the pyramids (Cenozoic), in Namibia, Sudan. Layers of rocks containing trees come to the surface and expose fossilized trunks or parts thereof on all continents and in many countries. In all countries, these unique monuments are under state protection, are a national treasure, and attract a lot of tourists.

Stone trees are also found in Ukraine in the Alekseevo-Druzhkovka region - on the site of a quarry for the extraction of refractory clay. By the way, Druzhkovka trees are, apparently, record holders in age - they belong to the Paleozoic (570 - 250 million years ago).

Did Asia once have an African climate?

Petrified trees found in Transbaikalia are similar to African ones for one simple reason, says Vladimir FLESHLER, head of the radiation and environmental geochemistry sector of Transbaikal Research Institute LLC, academician International Academy Sciences of Ecology and Life Safety (MANEB). - Both Africa and Eastern Siberia, that is, Asia, developed like all continents. Went through the evolution of the biosphere from lower organisms, lizards, fish, mammals to humans. So it is quite possible that these areas had the same climate and topography as in Africa. By the way, in South Africa The climate is now comparable to Transbaikal.

SELECTED FINDS\ LOCATION

Russia

Europe part of Russia

Petrified wood. Mikhailovsky district, KMA. Photo: V.A. Sletov, 2005

Petrified wood. Volga region, Russia."Gem". 2011.09.10 Photo: A. Evseev

Opal on wood. The area between Kamyshin and Volgograd, Nizh. Volga region, Russia. Samples: S.F. Kolesnikov. Photo 1-2: A. Evseev

Petrified wood. Kamyshin, Nizh. Volga region, Russia. More than 15 cm. Sample: Geologist. Museum Central District No. 170. 2010.12.04. Photo: A. Evseev

Nolinsk, Kirov region, Russia \\ petrified wood!! (Fersman, VII, 191)

Nebritov. N.L., Sidorov A.A. A very marvelous petrified tree. - Samara Luka, 2003, №11, 2-13.

Yakutia

Vilyuisk-okam. tree!!;

Chukotka

V.S. Chernavtsev: "1. Poleshko. Pseudomorphosis of siderite (iron carbonate) after pine. Age 35 million years." [Chukotka]. 2.1976 -1983 Chukotka, bank of the Velikaya River. Petrified wood deposit." Photo 1-2: V.S. Chernavtsev

Kamchatka

Calcite and agate in petrified wood (carpenter burrows). Cape Tevi, Kamchatka. Sample: Min. museum named after A.E. Fersman RAS. Photo 1-2: A.A. Evseev

Chalcedony on wood (petrified wood). Kamchatka, Russia. More than 15 cm. Sample: Miner. museum named after A.E. Fersman RAS (No. 5416. Legacy of the Stroganovs). Photo: A.A. Evseev.

Khabarovsk region

Siziman, village, Tatar Strait, Khabarovsk Territory, Russian Federation \\ opal on wood!! - “petrified forest” (Suprychev V.A., 1986)

Europe

Bulgaria