Who Collects Petrified Twigs

Harry Pristis · Apr 8, 2009

These twigs are examples of wood collected from a river site in Florida. They were preserved in exquisite detail in an anaerobic situation and subsequently mineralized with silica (from the SiO2 in solution in the river water). They look like they could be kindling for your campfire; but, these twigs give a glass-like 'clank' when tapped together.

The twigs from this site are dated bio-chronologically, that is, by the animal fossils preserved with them. Those animals date to the Early Pleistocene, about 2,000,000 years ago.

This site was a small backwater pool in the paleo-river which was in recent times exposed and washed away. It won't be producing any more of these fossils. I do have some extras of these twigs for trade. Just ask.

11KBP · Apr 8, 2009

Very interesting finds Harry ...thanks for showing them.

Harry Pristis · Apr 26, 2009

"Lianas are vines that begin life on the ground as small self-supporting shrubs and rely on other plants to reach the light-rich environment of the upper canopy. Because lianas use the architecture of other plants for support, they devote relatively little to structural support and instead allocate more resources to leaf production and stem/root elongation for rapid growth." (from mongabay.com)

This architecture condition appears to operate on the cellular level as well. These sections of liana do not have a typical growth ring pattern. Clearly, there is some cellular arrangement for transport of water within the vine; but, it doesn't preserve (at least) in the same manner as say a hardwood. No structure is apparent to the eye.

All the eye-interest in fossilized liana is in the exterior which is usually sculptured and sometime burrowed by insects. Little knot-holes are evident.

There are some 90 different families of liana recognized, and I don't know to which this specimen belongs. It is characterized by being flattened somewhat side-to-side. This Florida wood. like the other examples in this thread, is about 2,000,000 years old.