Lapidary / Gemstone Community Forum

Actually, it was fractured into the peices I show in the pictures LOL
I was in a huge Saqoia forest yesterday.... a 50+ million year old one in the south central BC region. These trees were knocked over and buried by some sort of catastrophic event that involved a lot of material that turned into a very hard sandstone and then the glaciers and tectonic forces came along, tearing the sandstone apart and parting the huge trees from their burial place and scatterring the remains across the mountainside. You walk through the regrowth forest that was logged in the 40s-50s through a lodgepole and spruce/pine forest mix of trees up to 3 ft. in diameter over ground covered in 6 inches of moss and look for the ghostly carcasses of long dead trees protruding from the moss and start to dig. The largest I saw was over six feet in diameter and all show evidence of fire scorching in the bark areas. There are hundreds of them here littering the hillside with the ghostly story of their long ago demise....
The one I dug was 3 ft. in diameter
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-N1SwF681Leo/U9WIwAfqivI/AAAAAAAAF9Q/lnrEv_IUSRQ/w643-h482-no/IMG_20140727_114019.jpg)
aftrer a pressure wash
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-yYvCc7t0h_U/U9Wt0MutTKI/AAAAAAAAF_E/A3GgLJIcob0/w643-h482-/IMG_20140727_185602.jpg)]
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-3YjhauzA7C4/U9Wt87SLexI/AAAAAAAAF_c/CicTXvuO0RM/w362-h482-no/IMG_20140727_185625.jpg)
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-aOJCcts8xaw/U9WuIpM13jI/AAAAAAAAF_0/DskWbo9Uq-g/w362-h482-no/IMG_20140727_185655.jpg)
 https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-al8A57SjLX8/U9WuMVe2fLI/AAAAAAAAGAA/qOySxqZqVDg/w362-h482-no/IMG_20140727_185734.jpg
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-bNIw-n13gMM/U9esLOTea3I/AAAAAAAAGK8/sMUcX_EUna4/w643-h482-no/IMG_20140728_181002.jpg)

What a great way to spend a day! Looks like a great haul!

Do you have a saw large enough to cut those?

That wood sure does look familiar ;) I have a few small ones laying around.
Your like Mike, he dug one out from there that was 3 to 4 feet across and 3 feet high. Spents days getting it down and had to roll it into the back of the truck, by himself. It sat at the gates to his property for years as a piece for the yard. Nice chunks you dug up Lloyd.

"What a great way to spend a day! Looks like a great haul!"
My daughter was up visiting from Vancouver for the weekend so I had some extra help:) and I wanted her to get an idea of where the pretty rocks come from; we had a great day thanks. My saw will do for the smaller peices not in the pictures so these will be yard decoration for a while :)


"That wood sure does look familiar ;) I have a few small ones laying around.
Your like Mike, he dug one out from there that was 3 to 4 feet across and 3 feet high. Spents days getting it down and had to roll it into the back of the truck, by himself. It sat at the gates to his property for years as a piece for the yard. Nice chunks you dug up Lloyd."
Do you know the spot Todd??
This bunch has to weigh 300 lbs so I can imagine how big Mikes was. The original loggers took a lot of the ones they unearthed out with their skidders and I can imagine the work it took to get the big peice into his truck!!!!
The six ft. one I saw would be 2000lb. plus; I didn't try to dig and see how much length was there, I heard of one 20ft. peice being taken out !!!

Impressive. I'd want to put it back together, but that'd be a LOT of glue. Nice find, and great to have your daughter along to share the excitement!

It would fit together fairly well; not too many peices fell off, but if I want a solid one there are lots, but I'm not lifting them LOL
I end polished a small peice for my daughter to take back home for a trophy :) It was good to have a good visit with her; a lot of times she is more into seeing old friends, and I can't blame her but it was good to spend some time...

Great display pieces!

You dont recall me telling you of the Fossil Forest, I remember telling you that the tree trunks were still standing in some places. I think you found it bud!
No, I can say that I'm bigger then Mike was. Just a lot of time and determination he had to get it home. Long story,it was only a friggen dodge 3/4 ton diesel to boot. lol
Glad to hear you had some company out on this dig :)
I almost forgot to tell you this....there is bone up there also. ;)
Sorry forth time back, interuptions from work.
Towards Logan lake on the bluffs.

Wow impressive Lloyd! Im sure it was a heck of alot of hard work getting them out hey!!!!
Can't wait to see some cut up and polished.

Another impressive find! Are the fires causing you problems for hounding? Wish we were going that way but the wife and I are going to Montana for 10 days this Saturday

you'll have to send me the coordinates for that bone Todd, and the jasper coordinates I forgot to copy; if you removed them that is...
"Wow impressive Lloyd! Im sure it was a heck of alot of hard work getting them out hey!!!!
Can't wait to see some cut up and polished."I end polished up 4 small peices that were more solid and they came up pretty good but in general; I think I'll have to pick and choose what I try to polish, it wasn't bad because the one i chose was all down hill and I rolled them where I could :)
"Another impressive find! Are the fires causing you problems for hounding? Wish we were going that way but the wife and I are going to Montana for 10 days this Saturday"
The rain last week put the fire ratings down to moderate so the bush isn't closed but heat this week will put them back up to extreme again I'm sure and we might get restrictios; mostly on open flames though. Some friends came back from Oregon with some really nice material from glass butte; free digs and another fellow was at Richardsons ranch and a couple of free digs and brought about 400lbs back, the border security gave him some strange looks when he declared 400lbs of rock; asked him why???

 a slice near the center core of the block that had fractured into a smaller peice. There is amazing detail contained in the petrification process with even small wood fibres from where the wood was forcefully broken by the event that caused the trees to be buried being preserved. The wood seems to be opalized as it is fairly soft; fast cutting compared to the agate and jasper I've cut lately, but I should be able to get a nice shine judging by small peices I have end polished. It sure is messy stuff to cut though; had to change my oil after....
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-ETFk8X1jyPA/U9e-Lo4dZjI/AAAAAAAAGRw/FKUioncziik/w643-h482-no/IMG_20140729_083025.jpg)

I thought you had it before it was removed. I can send then tonight or tomorrow, the gps coordinate's.
To bad log cabins cant turn to petrified wood. Now how cool would that be to have a cabin made of it. :)

If I were to use my buddys 24" saw and drag one of the unfractured peices home I would have enough to do a foyer or a couple of fireplaces in 3/8" layer; maybe I'll try a mantlepeice first :)
Sounds good about the coordinates, I had them copied but I forgot to paste into notepad; thanks Todd

That is such beautiful material Lloyd.

It sure is Ernie and it goes a long way because it is mostly solid but softer in the real light layers. I got more than I'll cab in quite a while just from one small peice that fractured off the main blocks