FYI - many of the links within your website you suggested I look at are
not working for me. Perhaps it is my computer, but I thought I should
mention it to you in case it was something more.

One of many links is on http://www.hgms.org/publications/indexlight.htm
and I chose color in petrified wood. Nothing. Also under Family from
that page, none of the subsequent links work for me either.

Sabrina
-----Original Message-----
From: Immega [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Wednesday, October 12, 2005 7:53 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [MUSEUM-L] Petrified Wood


Ms Henneman,

I am the "curator" of the Zuhl collection of petrified wood at the
Houston Museum of Natural Science. Dirk Van Tuerenhout (anthro curator)
passed on your question to me.

Petrified wood is classified as a biological sample, like a section of
a tree. Since almost all petrified wood has been mineralized with
silica, classifying them as rocks will give you only one unique entry.

What we did was identify what kind of tree it was when alive. Likely,
your pieces of wood is from the Holbrook area in Arizona and is a
wood from the Araucaria genera (modern relatives are the Norfork Island
pine).

If you would like to see what we did with our collection, see
www.hgms.org/publications.html and click on the Zuhl collection.

By the way, you might have in your collection a rather uninteresting
looking piece of petrified wood from Gilboa, NY. If so, don't discard
it,
it is from a fabulous find of really old petrified wood from the Gilboa
reservoir found in the 1890s. That wood is from the Devonian period,
much
lolder
that that from the petrified forest.

A natural history collection in NY is also likely to have trilobites,
Advise
if
you need help with those. There are lots of NY collectors of trilobites
that
I can
refer you to.

neal immega

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