This is a gorgeous petrified cottonwood slab from the old Johnson Ranch near the Holley crossroads in Oregon. This area has long been prized as providing some of the best preserved modern wood species in petrified wood found anywhere on the planet. The high contrast colors in this specimen are pretty dramatic for this region and represent one of the most attractive, complete larger rounds that I've seen. This site was just one of the many locations good quality petrified wood specimens can be found in this vast petrified forest. In this case it's a very nicely preserved hardwood with strong rays, well defined cells and squiggly wood grain. The wood grain and cell structure are consistent with modern cottonwood, but that is a group of easily confused trees and it will take more study to confirm this one (the other possible candidate from my reference books is birch but I think it's much more likely to be cottonwood given the large size). I've included a micro-photo of the cell structure to show how detailed this specimen is and to give a solid clue as to the species of this ancient tree trunk. This gorgeous show piece even appears to have petrified bark around the perimeter (not commonly seen). It's been polished to a mirror finish that we didn't do but would be proud to call our own.
This is a nice, larger, perfectly complete cross section petrified hardwood round from a large and scattered petrified forest near Sweet Home, Oregon. There are numerous locations (most on private land) of absolutely outstanding petrified wood in the hills and valleys of the Cascade Foothills. The wood that is found there varies a great deal in quality and preservation (even within the same dig site) but is often very agatized and extremely well preserved showing the finest level of plant detail under magnification. Paleobotanists have published over 60 species of wood descriptions from this area, but my own reference books are too limited to narrow them past some of their modern relatives. In this case, the wood grain is preserved well enough to easily see the diffuse porous pore structure, but you'd have to take sections from other angles to be certain. Almost the entire round looks picture perfect under a 10 power loup. Like other specimens from the Pacific Northwest, it's one of the most sought after petrified wood varieties in the world!! The colors found in the wood in this region are mostly wood and earth tones, but a few striking pieces with this rich blue/gray/black high contrast color spectrum are found. It's a wonderful show piece that will really look great in any collection!
This complete, nicely shaped round was cut from the center of a very solid log from a telephone pole sized sized tree trunk. This is a well preserved, richly colored, reasonably fracture free specimen. The tree rings are tight and well defined, and preserved in a dark coffee colored agate that really took a pretty good polish (these logs can sometimes be sandy and not all polish well). The lighter colored agatized interior contrasts nicely with the rest of the slab. It has been cut with a diamond saw then sanded and polished to a mirror finish. Our polish work is one of the things that sets our petrified wood and other fine lapidary materials apart from our imitators. We never comprimise with any stone, deploying every trick known in the industry (and some that aren't) to coax the best possible luster from every stone!
Measures about 15 1/2" across the widest part of the polished face, or about 14 1/4" x 12 1/4" as it sits in the photo. It's cut about 0.88" thick. Weight is 10.86 lbs.
A nice, unique natural wonder collectible exclusively from Sticks-in-Stones Lapidary.
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