Rocksday

Petrified Wood

Ancient wood whose cells were replaced, one by one, with quartz — turning a tree into stone.

Petrified Wood specimen
Photo: Michael Gäbler, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

How to identify petrified wood

  • Visible bark texture, growth rings or wood grain.
  • Heavy and hard like agate.
  • Colorful bands of red, yellow and brown in polished slices.

Often confused with

Where it's found

  • Petrified Forest, Arizona
  • Ginkgo Petrified Forest, Washington
  • Lesbos, Greece
  • Indonesia

Uses

Decorative slabs, bookends and tumbled stones.

Rock tumbling

Great for tumbling.

Did you know?

Arizona's petrified logs are about 220 million years old, from the Late Triassic.

Think you could spot it from a blurry close-up?

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