We were fortunate enough to tap into a new source of petrified logs that we hadn't seen in the US aside from the occasional piece that a tourist might pick up overseas! This exquisitely preserved petrified wood specimen is a slab cut from a small log from the Mandalay area of Myanamr. This area was briefly accessible a few years ago before the political situation once again made it all but impossible to do any kind of trade there. We worked for many months to export a small shipment of nice logs that we've been working on in the rockshop ever since. It took multiple trips to Myanmar to secure the stones but the effort was worth it! The wood is incredibly well preserved, quite solid and polishes beautifully. All of the species I've seen so far in our cutting are tropical hardwoods of various varieties in addition to some really nice, very beautiful petrified palm trunks. This is a small, absolutely perfect, nicely shaped slab with a gorgeous polish. In my reference books, the closest match to modern woods is Basralocus. I don't pretend to be a paleobotanist and my educated guess is only that, but the features are very distinctive as you can see in the microphoto. While the identification of this truly unique petrified wood fossil is merely an educated guess, my real expertise is in cutting and polishing these specimens to produce true museum quality collectibles. I have polished this nicely preserved fossil wood into a beautiful, perfectly prepared specimen with our signature lapidary work. Cut from the center of the log and polished to a mirror finish in our shop, this is a VERY nice display specimen! It is entirely possible that this is all of the stone we'll ever be able to obtain from this location, so don't miss a chance at something truly unique and beautiful for your collection!
I'd known that Burma was rumored to have some particularly fine petrified wood, but Myanmar was under economic sanctions that prohibited trade with the US until near the end of 2016. Those sanctions were lifted once free elections were held and I was finally able to begin exploring another region for petrified logs. But change comes slowly and Myanmar is not a particularly advanced country so the process has been slow and involved (to say the least!). Last year I managed to obtain two small logs on my first trip to this fascinating country and both produced amazing specimens. I was finally successful in trying to navigate the very complex trade requirements of Myanmar to purchase a larger shipment of these stones, and with that success, I am now able to offer a nice variety of choice specimens at an affordable price. I quite literally travel to the ends of the earth in search of finds like this to work with and share with other collectors, and this one was a particular adventure! A small taste of that story follows...
A few years ago on a trip to Asia I made a chance discovery that has started a nearly year long odyssey to track down a new source for petrified wood. I met a fellow with a family connection in Myanmar. I had heard rumors for years about petrified logs in Burma, but the only ones I had ever seen were in a market in Shanghai. Those logs were prohibitively expensive, but absolutely fascinating and, best of all, highly agatized. One of the most difficult things to assess with a potential new source for logs is whether the material is agatized enough to produce good specimens. But I was a bit more optimistic in this case as I had high hopes that the nicely silicified logs I'd seen in China were in fact Burmese logs. Since then I've made two trips to Myanmar to examine the material and meet the people digging it. Most of what they dig is still exported to China as viewing stones, some of them towering much higher than me! These are typically not cut, but polished on one vertical face to follow the contours of the log which are then sold as tree jade (though the material is opal and agate and not jade at all). I visited the villages where these stones were being dug and worked by the local craftsmen. Aside from being thatched huts with open sides, these compounds look a lot like my place with rock piled up everywhere! But among the overgrown piles of stone (filled with giant blue scorpions no less!) were some choice full logs of what appeared to be very well preserved petrified wood. I eventually managed to secure two smaller logs that I could fly back with in my luggage to cut and polish and prove out the stone I was seeing. As exciting as it always is for me to work with a new source of petrified wood, I was very pleasantly surprised to find fine structure and very polishable specimens in these two logs, though each was preserved very differently and clearly from different sites.
While these adventures provide a certain degree of color in my own life, I ultimately do it for my own passion for these amazing stones and the ancient stories they tell. I have not been able to date any of these logs yet (but I will continue to work on it and share that info when I have it). It is my sincere hope that a rare and uncommon specimen for your own collection as the fruits of these early endeavors to find a new source will be something you can enjoy as well. Trust me, it sounds like a lot more fun than it is as it has taken my body a couple of solid weeks to recover from each trip to a country that has only recently begun to open itself up through a series of highly published political and economic changes that they are still struggling with.
This is an nicely shaped round taken from a well preserved petrified log that shows great structure under magnification. It's cut from the center of a nicely shaped log that reveals the original growth patterns of the tree in beautiful detail. This specimen has been carefully polished to show off all the gemmy detail inside. It's another one of those beautiful fossil treasures that some happy Sticks-in-Stones customer is going to flip over!
This slab measures about 3 1/2" across the mirror polished face and is cut about 0.41" thick. Weight is 0.26 lbs.
A nice, unique naturally wonderful stone collectible exclusively from Sticks-in-Stones Lapidary.
I'd known that Burma was rumored to have some particularly fine petrified wood, but Myanmar was under economic sanctions that prohibited trade with the US until near the end of 2016. Those sanctions were lifted once free elections were held and I was finally able to begin exploring another region for petrified logs. But change comes slowly and Myanmar is not a particularly advanced country so the process has been slow and involved (to say the least!). Last year I managed to obtain two small logs on my first trip to this fascinating country and both produced amazing specimens. I was finally successful in trying to navigate the very complex trade requirements of Myanmar to purchase a larger shipment of these stones, and with that success, I am now able to offer a nice variety of choice specimens at an affordable price. I quite literally travel to the ends of the earth in search of finds like this to work with and share with other collectors, and this one was a particular adventure! A small taste of that story follows...
A few years ago on a trip to Asia I made a chance discovery that has started a nearly year long odyssey to track down a new source for petrified wood. I met a fellow with a family connection in Myanmar. I had heard rumors for years about petrified logs in Burma, but the only ones I had ever seen were in a market in Shanghai. Those logs were prohibitively expensive, but absolutely fascinating and, best of all, highly agatized. One of the most difficult things to assess with a potential new source for logs is whether the material is agatized enough to produce good specimens. But I was a bit more optimistic in this case as I had high hopes that the nicely silicified logs I'd seen in China were in fact Burmese logs. Since then I've made two trips to Myanmar to examine the material and meet the people digging it. Most of what they dig is still exported to China as viewing stones, some of them towering much higher than me! These are typically not cut, but polished on one vertical face to follow the contours of the log which are then sold as tree jade (though the material is opal and agate and not jade at all). I visited the villages where these stones were being dug and worked by the local craftsmen. Aside from being thatched huts with open sides, these compounds look a lot like my place with rock piled up everywhere! But among the overgrown piles of stone (filled with giant blue scorpions no less!) were some choice full logs of what appeared to be very well preserved petrified wood. I eventually managed to secure two smaller logs that I could fly back with in my luggage to cut and polish and prove out the stone I was seeing. As exciting as it always is for me to work with a new source of petrified wood, I was very pleasantly surprised to find fine structure and very polishable specimens in these two logs, though each was preserved very differently and clearly from different sites.
While these adventures provide a certain degree of color in my own life, I ultimately do it for my own passion for these amazing stones and the ancient stories they tell. I have not been able to date any of these logs yet (but I will continue to work on it and share that info when I have it). It is my sincere hope that a rare and uncommon specimen for your own collection as the fruits of these early endeavors to find a new source will be something you can enjoy as well. Trust me, it sounds like a lot more fun than it is as it has taken my body a couple of solid weeks to recover from each trip to a country that has only recently begun to open itself up through a series of highly published political and economic changes that they are still struggling with.
This is an nicely shaped round taken from a well preserved petrified log that shows great structure under magnification. It's cut from the center of a nicely shaped log that reveals the original growth patterns of the tree in beautiful detail. This specimen has been carefully polished to show off all the gemmy detail inside. It's another one of those beautiful fossil treasures that some happy Sticks-in-Stones customer is going to flip over!
This slab measures about 3 1/2" across the mirror polished face and is cut about 0.41" thick. Weight is 0.26 lbs.
A nice, unique naturally wonderful stone collectible exclusively from Sticks-in-Stones Lapidary.