Petrified Wood and Fossil Trees

This fossil stump at Gilboa, New York, of Devonian age, testifies to the world's first forest. Just like the phosphate-based bone tissue of vertebrate animals, durable wood made modern life and ecosystems possible. Wood has endured through the fossil record to today. It can be found in terrestrial rocks where forests grew or in marine rocks, in which floating logs can be preserved. See more examples in the Fossil Wood Gallery.