dobbino's photos
Nature's textures ii - Petrified wood
Posted by dobbino (Cape Town, South Africa) on 26 March 2009 in Plant & Nature.
Petrified wood is a type of fossil: it consists of fossil wood where all the organic materials have been replaced with minerals (most often a silicate, such as quartz), while the original structure of the wood is retained. The petrifaction process occurs underground, when wood becomes buried under sediment and is initially preserved due to a lack of oxygen. Mineral-rich water flowing through the sediment deposits minerals in the plant's cells and as the plant's lignin and cellulose decay away, a stone mould forms in its place. Elements such as manganese, iron and copper in the water/mud during the petrification process give petrified wood a variety of different colours. While pure quartz crystals are colourless, when contaminants are added to the process, the crystals take on different tints, such as red and yellow.
Information courtesy of Wikipedia
This is one of the things that I love about photography - it sometimes makes one delve deeper into things than would normally be the case. I knew "basically" what petrified wood was, but not in this amount of detail. Anyway, I struggled to pick which of the two photos to post, and eventually decided on the combo - where one can see overall what the piece of wood looks like, but also then get some sense of the finer detail.
All comments, and especially constructive criticism is truly appreciated. Thank you for taking the time.
All images © Rob Minter, and licensed in terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 South Africa License
Canon EOS 40D
1/1000 second
F/5.6
ISO 200
44 mm