I was going through some of my boxes of Devonian material the other day and came across some specimens of coalified wood that I'd found a few years back in Kentucky. The fossils were found at a location where some rock had been dumped as fill. I'd been alerted to the location by a member of the Fossil Forum who'd found a piece of fish bone at the same location. I didn't find any bone but these carbonized impressions were pretty cool so I picked up what I could find. I'd forgotten about them until I pulled this flat out of a box.
I have no idea what species of plant they came from but they sort of look like the Calamites stems I find in Pennsylvanian aged rocks. These fossils come from rock that I think belongs to the New Albany Shale which is upper Devonian in age. I do have a piece of petrified wood from the New Albany Shale that I blogged about
here, but it does not look quite the same as what I collected.
Here is a panoramic view of the collecting locality as it existed in 2009.
I have found very similar looking wood fossils in the slates of the late Jurassic Mariposa Fm of the Northern Sierra metamorphic terrane. Most are just impressions, but some pieces actually contain "coalified" material, as you say. I was never sure if it was wood or not, but your interpretation agrees with mine...so wood it is!
ReplyDeleteI have found very similar looking wood fossils in the slates of the late Jurassic Mariposa Fm of the Northern Sierra metamorphic terrane. Most are just impressions, but some pieces actually contain "coalified" material, as you say. I was never sure if it was wood or not, but your interpretation agrees with mine...so wood it is!
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