Silicified Wood or Petrified Wood

Silicified wood is also known as petrified wood or wood jade. These fossils are the result of the silicification of ancient buried trees, such as cycads, ginkgo trees, conifers and cyatheas. These fossils preserve the external form and internal structure of the original plants. Based on the degree of crystallisation and petrification, silicified wood can be made up of aphano-crystalline quartz, chalcedony, opal, calcite, dolomite, limonite and pyrite, and it can be light yellow to yellow, red, yellowish brown, reddish brown, brown, black, grey and white. In China, silicified wood fossils have been found in Xinjiang Province, Inner Mongolia, Yunnan Province, Hebei Province, Beijing, Hubei Province, Shandong Province, Gansu Province, Fujian Province, Liaoning Province, Shanxi Province, Jiangxi Province and Sichuan Province. These fossils are preserved in Mesozoic terrestrial facies, and the plant species are mainly conifers. The Cenozoic fossils are dominantly angiosperms (Fig. 30).

Fig....