At the last meeting club secretary Bill Bagley gave a very informative talk on fossil wood. The talk commenced by a look at petrified forests throughout the world, from those in the UK at Glasgow, Brymbo and Lulworth Cove to those in the national park Arizona and on the Greek island of Lesvos. Bill then went on to describe the process of petrification which occurs in two stages of permineralisation followed by replacement and petrification. The original plant material may be replaced with silica, calcite or pyrite or another inorganic material like opal.
The talk ended with Bill showing the audience examples of fossil wood for sale on the internet and although fine specimens were a bit outside the pocket of most of us!