Live Oak large slab Santa Barbara Canyon, CA High End Polished Petrified Wood

Description

Live Oak   (Quercus sp.)
Vaqueros Formation   Miocene
Santa Barbara Canyon, near New Cuyama, California
** Location, location, location. This fantastic slab of Live Oak has terrific patterning and real visual punch.  This slab was cut from the first live oak log we have seen from the locality.  Santa Barbara Canyon is a locality not seen in most collections.  Wood from this area is quite scarce on the market and full rounds have always been even more scarce from there.
If having a diversity of localities represented in your collection is important to you then you will want to give this piece SERIOUS consideration.  The preservation is outstanding (please see our photomicrographs for examples.  Like other species of oaks, the live oaks have a really strong radial grain pattern resulting from the wide medullary rays.  But, unlike other oak species, the live oaks are NOT DECIDUOUS, THEY ARE EVERGREEN.  They do not lose their leaves in the autumn but instead retain their leaves for years and years while adding new leaves each spring.  The consequence of being evergreen on the wood is that annual growth rings are either indistinct or non-existent.
New Cuyama comes from the Chumash Indian name for "clams," and is located in far northeastern Santa Barbara County, California. Well-named because indeed the area contains considerable deposits of fossil clams in marine strata which interfinger with terrestrial deposits, with only occasional finds of petrified wood.  These interfingering deposits are ancient seashore environments which changed back and forth from marine to terrestrial as sea levels changed and tectonic forces started pushing up land mass at the point where the Pacific Plate is being subducted under the North American Plate.  Interesting geology, interesting fossils, interesting etymology and fantastic aesthetics all wrapped up in a single specimen of handsome petrified wood from an obscure locality.  You won't find a better one!  This high end slab measures
9” x 8” diameter on the polished face and 1/2” thick.
We specialize in petrified wood and plant fossils which are accurately identified as to locality of origin and family, genus or species. We don't guess and when we don't know, we say so!  Your specimen will come with a label identifying the specimen, the locality where it was collected, the formation and age of the material and any other pertinent information we have gleaned from our literature search.
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