* I just read something that gave me an idea how petrified wood formed in more detail.
* I read that "The predominant minerals in petrified wood are silicates, such as quartz."
* And an abstract about: "Rapid wood silicification in hot spring water" is at:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_o ... e3c0868cc0
* It says that minerals can seep into pieces of wood in hot spring water and petrify it in 7 years or more.
* Considering that electric power lines can fossilize a tree root and probably a leg wearing a cowboy boot, as mentioned in previous posts in this thread, what I think happened to get the variation in colors is:
Forests were inundated in the Great Flood; the waters were very hot in some areas from vulcanism etc; the trees laid in the hot water for months; electric charge in the water hastened the transport of minerals into the wood and fossilized it; the carbon and possibly calcium in the wood transmuted into silicates; some minerals may have transmuted, while others perhaps did not; the minerals or lack of them resulted in the color variations; sulfur varies in color from yellow to red; iron varies from gray to red and brown, I think;
* This
http://www.aquariumadvice.com/forums/f1 ... 70013.html says:
Not all the minerals in petrified wood are quartz. They can be calcite, magnesium, potassium, carbonates, silicates and many others. That's where all the different colors come from.
* This
http://www.northern.edu/natsource/earth/Petrif1.htm looks like a better source:
What Minerals Are In Petrified Wood?
The mineral content of petrified wood is easily identified using a mass spectrometer or X-ray diffraction technology. Silica, in the form of silicon dioxide (SiO2), commonly known as quartz, is the most common replacement mineral. Often traces of other minerals give petrified wood its unique color and characteristics. Iron oxide will cause reds, browns, yellows and earth tones. Copper and chrome oxide create greens, silicates of aluminum produce whites, and manganese dioxide makes black.
* The silicon in petrified wood seems to be like glass, which may mean that the silicates melted, which would have required considerable heat, which electric discharges could provide.
* In the following links, you can see petrified wood has a lot of variation in colors. Some are brown, gray or dull colored, and some are bright red, yellow etc. All the following links come from this one:
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q ... a=N&tab=wi
http://philip.greenspun.com/images/pcd2 ... e-15.4.jpg
http://web.mst.edu/~rogersda/umrcourses ... ed_log.JPG
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... Forest.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... g_1_md.jpg
http://www.legendsofamerica.com/photos- ... Forest.jpg
http://science.nationalgeographic.com/s ... 032-sw.jpg
http://z.about.com/d/gosw/1/0/g/B/agatehouseclose.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... k_Wood.jpg
http://photos.igougo.com/images/p112978 ... st_Log.jpg
http://www.celnav.de/vacation/petwood.jpg
http://people.arsc.edu/~kcarlson/Travel ... PFlog3.jpg
http://www.safarisudan.com/media/images ... d-wood.jpg
http://www.photoatlas.com/photo/usa_pet ... l_park.jpg
http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b226/ ... 1237943826
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... g_1_md.jpg
Closely spaced standing petrified trees in Australia
http://www.gemmadickens.com/archive.htm ... x54957=250
http://www.gemmadickens.com/uploads/244 ... 102916.jpg
This place is called the petrified forest, as it was once believed that the trees that grew here turned to stone. The truth is probably close to that,a grove of old Moonah trees have become encased in limestone.
http://www.chockstonephotos.com/Images/ ... orest1.jpg