Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Tree remains that have undergone petrifaction, as seen in Petrified Forest National Park. In geology, petrifaction or petrification (from Ancient Greek πέτρα (pétra) ' rock, stone ') is the process by which organic material becomes a fossil through the replacement of the original material and the filling of the original pore spaces with minerals.
Unlike other plant fossils, which are typically impressions or compressions, petrified wood is a three-dimensional representation of the original organic material. The petrifaction process occurs underground, when wood becomes buried in water or volcanic ash .
Over time the wood will usually be the part of a plant that is best preserved (and most easily found). Fossil wood may or may not be petrified, in which case it is known as petrified wood or petrified tree. The study of fossil wood is sometimes called palaeoxylology, with a "palaeoxylologist" somebody who studies fossil wood.
A fossil preparator handles fossils found in Petrified Forest National Park at the museum's demonstration lab. Visitors are not allowed to take fossils from the park.
The upright fossil trees of the Gallatin Petrified Forest in the Gallatin Range and the Yellowstone Petrified Forest at Amethyst Mountain and Specimen Ridge in Yellowstone National Park, occur buried within the lahars and other volcanic deposits comprising the Eocene Lamar River Formation as the result of periods of rapid sedimentation associated with explosive volcanism.
In geology, silicification is a petrification process in which silica-rich fluids seep into the voids of Earth materials, e.g., rocks, wood, bones, shells, and replace the original materials with silica (SiO 2).
A fossil from the Cherokee Ranch petrified forest. A large petrified forest thought to date to the Paleocene at around 55 million years old is located on and around the grounds of Cherokee Ranch in Douglas County, Colorado. These Denver Basin fossils include plants similar to the modern laurel tree family. At least 40 large petrified logs have ...
Molecular paleontology techniques applied to fossils have contributed to the discovery and characterization of several new species, including the Denisovans and Homo heidelbergensis. We have been able to better understand the path that humans took as they populated the earth, and what species were present during this diaspora .