Hi everyone. About 20 years ago my wife and I were checking out the Pekin petrified wood area in Montgomery County and while we were finding the typical wood pieces you see from there, my wife pulled this out of the creek. All the wood we collected there and I see on the internet is a tan, black, brown and gray fine grain rock with most having moderate weathering. This stone looks to be fine chocolate brown jasper with amazing detail. Has anyone seen a piece of wood like this from the Pekin area? It makes me wonder if any fine brown jasper arrowheads were found in the nearby fields. This stuff would make great knapping material. Thank you for any information. Keith
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Hey Keith,
That’s really cool, thanks for sharing it! I’ve seen examples of petrified wood from the Durham Sub-Basin of the Deep River Basin in Orange County which include Araucarioxylon wood, but I’m not too familiar with that Montgomery County site or the more southern NC Newark basin.
I unfortunately don’t know enough to give you any specific info, but have you reached out to Dr. James “Jim” Mickle from the NCSU? He’s probably the most authoritative person I know of in the NCFC when it comes to the Triassic plants of our area. Christian Kammerer from the NCMNS is also fairly informative on material from the Late Triassic of the region, though I believe his expertise is greater in the area of vertebrates. If anyone could get you some good information on that specimen it would likely be those two. I can let Jim know about this post and see what he thinks.
Hope that is helpful, and best of luck to you!
-Tony