Fossil Friday: Copper Replacement
This is petrified wood but it has not been replaced by silica like it usually would be. It has been carbonized and replaced by copper minerals. It comes from the Nacimiento Mining District, Sandoval County, New Mexico, USA. (Incidentally, I used to live in this county when I was a child. Beautiful deserts out there).
The copper minerals came about because the environment of deposition created oxygen-reduction in a river system (lots of rotting wood and buried plant material). This caused mineral precipitation when copper-bearing water flowed through the permeable sands.
Copper minerals found in the wood at this site include malachite,
azurite,
and chrysocolla.
It is rare for fossils to be replaced with non-silica or calcite minerals but every now and then the conditions are just right to allow that to happen.
Now you know about one more way to fossilize something. Tune in Monday to learn how to find copper in the wild. Fossilize you later!