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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.
Petrified wood (from Ancient Greek πέτρα meaning 'rock' or 'stone'; literally 'wood turned into stone'), is the name given to a special type of fossilized wood, the fossilized remains of terrestrial vegetation.
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.
Fossils of organisms' bodies are usually the most informative type of evidence. The most common types are wood, bones, and shells. [59] Fossilisation is a rare event, and most fossils are destroyed by erosion or metamorphism before they can be observed. Hence the fossil record is very incomplete, increasingly so further back in time.
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.
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.
The trackway Protichnites from the Cambrian, Blackberry Hill, central Wisconsin. A trace fossil, also known as an ichnofossil (/ ˈ ɪ k n oʊ f ɒ s ɪ l /; from Greek: ἴχνος ikhnos "trace, track"), is a fossil record of biological activity by lifeforms but not the preserved remains of the organism itself. [1]
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 ...