Petrified Wood????

[MargoB17]

Found this in Minnesota where land was dug up. Very very heavy. Wondering if it's petrified wood? 

[jasong]

Hard to ID rocks from photos but if I had to guess based on the looks of it and the fact you said it's "very very heavy", my initial guess would be BIF. AKA - banded iron formation. It has a huge variety of appearances though so it's not always recognizable just from a photo. There is however a ton of it in the Canadian Shield area, from memory.

Try to stick a strong magnet to it. Some is more magnetic than others but I'm guessing most has enough iron in it to be at least somewhat magnetic. If not magnetic then try scratching with a knife, it could be something like shale. Petrified wood will not scratch usually since it's silicified, but it doesn't look like petrified to me anyways. 

[Steve Herschbach]

Yeah, I'm also doubting it's petrified wood. Another one-time poster. I have to admit I'm getting suspicious of these, often plants for later spam.

[jasong]

Bummer about the spammers, I kinda like rock and mineral ID's just for the challenge to stay sharp and occasionally learn a thing or two when I'm unsure of one. 

[MargoB17]

On 7/22/2022 at 2:43 PM, Steve Herschbach said:

Yeah, I'm also doubting it's petrified wood. Another one-time poster. I have to admit I'm getting suspicious of these, often plants for later spam.

I am a real person who happened to come upon this rock where the ground was dug up. I'm not a bot or spam for later. I was hoping to gain insight from this website, clearly not a place to go unless you want to be accused by it's memebers. Is the doubt of it being real because of a one time post or because of your bias to me? Is it that odd to only have one post when all I ever found that was cool was this?

[Steve Herschbach]

You posted once, disappeared for over a month. That's the normal profile for a drive by spammer, like it or not. I apologize, but you have to understand also how big a problem this is for forums and other sites. If you want to be a member and participate, you are quite welcome.

[Jeff McClendon]

I can easily see why you thought your find might be petrified wood. I too seriously doubt it unless it is a petrified plank from Atlantean or Lemurian times.......

Here is a photo from Wikipedia of Jaspilite, banded ironstone from northeastern Minnesota,

 

[jasong]

I just encountered some BIF today prospecting, took a picture for this thread. This one is a bit more rusty than the original photo, but same general stuff.

I picked up another piece that looks almost identical to the original photo but then I forgot to take a pic of it, doh. 

The stuff on Google images is usually more decorative. What Margot has (and what I'm trying to show here), is what common BIF looks like. It's often confused for either schist or petrified wood in the same way slag is confused with meteorites. 

Interesting fact: BIF can also get silicified just like petrified wood, making it confused for petrified wood even more often. This is jasperized BIF, not petrified wood:

It's far and away, 100%, the most common ID request I get in person from friends and friend's kids. 

 

 

 

[phrunt]

We have a petrified forest nearby here, a real sight to see.

One of the few accessible petrified forests on the planet.

https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20211111-new-zealands-180-million-year-old-forest

It's pretty cool to go and see, but you know how it is, because its local I don't have any of my own photos as I don't go as a tourist 😛

[MargoB17]

My buddy cut it today, what do you think??!