Description

Fossil, Fossilized wood from McDermitt, Nevada. Specimen #36.

You will receive this exact specimen, which is approximately 5″ tall x 4″ wide x 2″ deep.

Fossilized wood from the McDermitt area of northern Nevada comes from a time when this now-arid high desert was a lush, forested landscape surrounding a vast Miocene-age lake system. Volcanic eruptions blanketed the region in ash, rapidly burying fallen trees. Silica-rich groundwater, released from the volcanic tuffs, slowly permeated the wood and replaced each cell with microcrystalline quartz and opal, preserving growth rings, knots, and even microscopic cell walls in astonishing detail.

What makes McDermitt petrified wood especially beautiful is its color and translucence. Iron oxides can stain it in warm reds, golds, and browns, while pure silica creates milky whites and glassy grays. Some pieces show subtle banding from seasonal growth, frozen in stone for over 15 million years, offering a window into the ancient climate and volcanic forces that shaped the Great Basin.

McDermitt Nevada fossil wood formed in volcanic ash, where silica replaced ancient trees, preserving rings, cells, and rich desert-hued colors in stone.

Fossilized wood, often called petrified wood, is the stone “memory” of an ancient forest. Millions of years ago, trees were buried by sediment, cutting off oxygen and slowing decay. Mineral-rich groundwater then seeped through the wood’s microscopic клетка-sized spaces, replacing the original organic material molecule by molecule with silica, calcite, or iron oxides. The result is a perfect mineral cast of the tree’s internal structure—growth rings, knots, and even tiny cells preserved in stone.

Colors in fossilized wood tell a geologic story: reds and yellows come from iron, blacks from carbon or manganese, and greens from trace copper or chromium. Each piece is both a fossil and a crystal, recording the climate, chemistry, and ecosystems of deep time while retaining the familiar form of bark and branches.

Fossil, Fossilized wood from Poison Springs, Utah. Specimen #22