Latest / PlanetGeo: The Geology Podcast
Petrification
Today, we are talking about the process of making petrified wood. Basically, wood has to be quickly buried in a wet setting where the water is also saturated in certain minerals - usually silica. Also, there must be little oxygen present or oxidation reactions have to occur to use up all of the available oxygen. This prevents the wood from getting eaten by decomposers. We will also get into the geologic settings where this is likely to occur.
Finally, we talk a little about how we come up with ages of petrified wood and use this to kick off a series on Geochronology. Enjoy!
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