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Product Description
Petrified Wood Circle Cliffs Utah Araucarioxylon Polished Rock
This is a slabbed and polished on one face full "round" Petrified Wood that is 5.4 inches by 3.6 inches wide and .82 of an inch thick.
It has great "bark" all the way around.
The second-largest fossil forest of its age in North America, if not the entire world, is in the Circle Cliffs portion of Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monument in southern Utah. Commonly called the Wolverine Petrified Forest, this area’s official name is Wolverine Petrified Wood Natural Environmental Area.
The fossil wood preserved in the Wolverine Petrified Wood Natural Area originates from the Late Triassic Chinle Formation.
Most of the petrified wood appears to represent Araucarioxylon, a species of petrified wood common throughout the Chinle Formation at many localities in Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico, but a small amount of a second species of wood called Woodworthia is also present in Wolverine Petrified Forest.
This piece was from an old collection and was self collected in the 40's or 50's, prior to the establishment of the park in 1996.
Petrified Wood formed when a tree died and is quickly buried by sediments. Minerals in the groundwater then permeated the wood, replacing the original organic matter and turning it to stone. The main mineral is silica, but trace elements in the silica create a variety of colors.
