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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 .
Fossil wood is wood that is preserved in the fossil record. Wood is usually the part of a plant that is best preserved (and most easily found). Fossil wood may or may not be petrified. The fossil wood may be the only part of the plant that has been preserved; [101] therefore such wood may get a special kind of botanical name.
Petrified wood are fossils of wood that have turned to stone through the process of permineralization. [3] All organic materials are replaced with minerals while maintaining the original structure of the wood. The most notable example is the petrified forest in Arizona. [4]
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.
Petrified Forest National Park is known for its fossils, especially of fallen trees that lived in the Late Triassic Epoch of the Mesozoic era, about 225–207 million years ago. During this epoch, the region that is now the park was near the equator on the southwestern edge of the supercontinent Pangaea , and its climate was humid and sub ...
Like other fossils, coprolites have had much of their original composition replaced by mineral deposits such as silicates and calcium carbonates. Paleofeces, on the other hand, retain much of their original organic composition and can be reconstituted to determine their original chemical properties, though in practice the term coprolite is also ...
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.