Petrified Wood

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Petrified Wood

• By Jen Osburn
• Hannah Pugh

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Some Questions to Answer

• What is petrified wood?
• How is it formed?
• Why are there multiple colors?
• Where can this wood be found?
• What has petrified wood been used for?
• What are some interesting properties of petrified
  wood?
• Are there any interesting stories associated with
  it?

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What is Petrified Wood?

• A fossil in which all of the
• organic components
• of wood have been replaced
• by minerals
• The original structure of the
• wood is normally preserved
• Sometimes the individual
• structure of cells can be
• distinguished
• Tree rings can be observed on many pieces
• At the microscopic level, many tissues of the
  wood
• can be identified

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The Petrification Process
STEP 1 Wood gets buried in sediment. This
usually occurs due to volcanic eruptions,
mudslides, or other natural disasters.
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STEP 2 Water rich in minerals flows through the
sediment. STEP 3 The minerals replace the
woods cells and organic materials with stone
over the course of many years.
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What is Involved?

• Preservation of the wood can be attributed to a
  lack of oxygen.
• Most of the minerals involved in the process are
  silicates.
• The structure of the cells of the wood can be
  preserved so well by that the features can be
  observed in detail at a microscopic level.
• The minerals take the place of the woods lignin
  and cellulose as they decay.

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Colors
Different elements in the minerals yield
different colors in the new fossilized
wood. Carbon Black Cobalt Green/Blue Chromium
Green/Blue Copper Green/Blue Iron Oxides
Red, Brown, Yellow Manganese Pink/Orange Mangane
se Oxides Black
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Locations
The world is constantly changing, most of the
land mass at one time was covered in tropical
forests, so petrified wood can be found almost
anywhere.
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The Best Locations

• Argentina
• Canadian Badlands
• Czech Republic
• Greece
• Libya
• USA
• Australia
• India

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What Can It Be Used For?
Paper weight anyone?
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Interesting Properties

• On the Mohs Hardness Scale, petrified wood is
  rated with a 7, the same as quartz.
• Petrified wood is the state gem of Washington.
• Petrified wood generally makes a better pet rock
  than regular rocks.
• Petrified wood is the official state fossil of
  Arizona.
• Petrified wood can weigh thousands of pounds.

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Folklore

• Many myths and fairy tales have some mention of
  the petrification process.
• The story of Medusa
• Basilisks
• Childrens games
• Various fairy tales

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Can It Be Made in a Lab?
A lab in the state of Washington has successfully
created artificial petrified wood.
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References

• http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrified_wood
• http//www.scienceviews.com/parks/treestostone.htm
  l
• http//www.desertusa.com/mag00/jan/papr/rock.html
• http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrifaction