Huge colorful petrified conifer, wood slice from Arizona, Araucaria

A huge polished petrified conifer wood slice from Arizona, from the Triassic genus Araucaria. A museum-quality trunk cross-section in which the original wood structures are completely preserved.

Petrified wood from Petrified Forest National Park Arizona is about 220 million years old. The trunks of the Araucaria genus lay in volcanic ash. Silicic groundwater penetrated and replaced the organic material cell by cell with quartz, chalcedony, or opal.

The colorful bands are created by traces of iron, manganese, and carbon in varying concentrations. This specimen shows the full spectrum from red to yellow to brown and black. A didactically valuable piece for permineralization mineralogy.

Such large trunk cross-sections are now recovered from historical collections or private lands on the park's edges. Recovery is prohibited within the park itself.

A paleontological collector's item of museum dimensions and 220 million years of Earth's history in stone.