Pet Wood in Georgia

[Admin]

Jul 1, 2022 13:24:47 GMT -7 @jamesp said:

Thought you guys might be interested in what the Alabama USGS rep had to say:
Hello Mr. Price,

"Thank you for sharing your fossil photos with us! It looks like you have a nice collection of petrified wood fragments. The rocks of the Upahee Creek area belong to the Tuscaloosa Group, which is a geologic formation that dates to the early part of the Late Cretaceous period in Alabama. Petrified wood is common in the Coker Formation of the Tuscaloosa Group so I would guess that your specimens are likely from that unit, which is about 95 million years old.


I am not able to give you any help on identifying the species of your plant fossils as I work with fossils of marine reptiles like mosasaurs. You would need a paleobotanist who specializes in Cretaceous plants to potentially identify the species, although it is difficult to do with petrified wood. There used to be a paleobotanist at the University of South Alabama named Dr. Brian Axsmith but unfortunately he died of covid early on in the pandemic. I can’t think of any other paleobotanists working in Alabama. You might try Dr. Nina Baghai-Riding ([e-mail]) over at Delta State University in Mississippi. She has previously worked on Cretaceous plant fossils in the southeast but if she can’t identify them herself she may be able to give you contact information for someone who can."


So my spot is 2 counties to the left from the east border of Bama in the Coker. The wood is in the yellow creeks cutting into the Coker aquifer.
Note the next formation north is the pink metasedimentary and metaVOLCANIC aquifer. There is the volcanic sediment supply !! And the dark purple super water bearing metagranite aquifer and note the yellow wetlands flowing southwest out of it. The granite structure is the tail end of the Appalachians(and the Fall Line).

The intersection of the Coker and volcanic source was an exciting find.

Odd that the geologist called it the Coker formation yet the map calls it the Coker Aquifer ?

[Admin]

Jul 8, 2022 5:34:28 GMT -7 @jamesp said:

1dave
@metamorpheus

I am guessing these are all the same plant. Note that no specimen out of 100's has been found to have a single limb knot...

Many petrifications are not wood. Especially down south and especially in Texas where over 400 fossil palm species have been ID'ed.(there are only about a dozen palm species in North America today). There were so many other species beyond cyclades, ferns, palms, etc that it is often impossible to identify the diverse plant life back then. Call it the Garden of Eden .

I picked these plant petrifications up in south Texas in a couple of weeks. There are some insane plant structures. No telling what crazy species existed back then. Most seem not to be wood or fern or cyclad, no telling what species they might be. Then you enter the distortion effects of silicification and things get real complicated.

You may have the answer. The Alabama paleontologists have been challenged in making an ID.

Texas petrifications of 'mystery species' and wood and palm:

www.flickr.com/photos/67205364@N06/sets/72157673525247354

This Texas plant resembles the plant in Alabama. I found a lot of it. It was typically red too.



Cross sawn it resembles the Alabama plant closely with the blotchy texture and no rings.

[Admin]

Jul 8, 2022 5:39:02 GMT -7 @jamesp said:

This Texas find has a unique structure

[Admin]

Jul 8, 2022 5:47:05 GMT -7 @jamesp said:

Texas shinkwood or 'pocket rot'. This wood petrified after rotting and separating. Friend's finds.
Remember 1dave you mention petrified rotting wood ?

Texas shrinkwood altered by silicification process