STUDYING THE PAST OF Petrified Wood

Trust Plant Anatomy To Be Your Guide When Working In the Present

- DOUG FOSTER

Petrified wood is one of the least expensive semi-precious gemstones and yet can be one of the most fascinating if properly prepared and labelled. Many years ago, I got interested when a big flood dropped tons of rock on our pasture, including a lot of petrified wood, and a local rock shop cut a big chunk for me that revealed unexpected patterns inside. Over time, this interest turned into an obsession. Lacking any formal background in geology and botany, I studied diligently, learned to identify wood, kept my three slab saws running most daylight hours, and identified thousands of specimens of petrified wood. For the last 20 years, I’ve been the curator of petrified wood at the Crater Rock Museum in Central Point, Oregon, and I’ve coauthored and published the first scientific study of petrified wood in Oregon’s Rogue Valley.

To know how best to cut petrified wood, you’ll have to learn some plant anatomy, and to describe and label petrified wood, you’ll need to learn more plant anatomy and buy a 20X lens: your old 10X loop isn’t powerful enough. One attraction of petrified wood, seldom taken advantage of by lapidaries, is telling its story: petrified wood was once alive, and most people are interested in fossils. This can vary from describing woody features to telling how long ago the tree was alive to identifying what kind of tree it was.

CUTTING, GRINDING AND GLUING