Quartz after Wood

specimen number:
2292146

location:
Patagonia, Argentina

description:
An attractive cut and polished piece of petrified wood.

The petrified wood deposits of Patagonia, Argentina, most notably represented by the Monumento Natural Bosques Petrificados in Santa Cruz Province, are globally recognized occurrences of fossilized flora. Geologically, these petrified forests originate from the Middle to Late Jurassic Epoch, approximately 150 million years ago, when dense forests of giant conifers, primarily belonging to the Araucariaceae family, were buried by massive volcanic ash falls from the forming Andes Mountains. The high silica content of the volcanic ash dissolved into circulating groundwater and gradually replaced the organic wood fibers through permineralization, converting the logs into solid chalcedony and jasper while preserving cellular details. Commercial extraction and formal quarrying for lapidary material and fossil specimens occurred throughout the mid-twentieth century under various private leases. However, to prevent widespread exploitation and the depletion of the resource, the Argentine government established strict federal protections in 1954, halting large-scale commercial mining and restricting extraction to designated legal concessions outside the national park boundaries, where managed collecting continues under strict regulatory oversight.

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