A Startling Discovery

[HARK!]

Could it have been an old logging site?

Southeast Texas isn't known for logging. The trees aren't very big there. Even if it was; that wouldn't explain how trees got embedded in sedimentary rock.

I doubt it.

 

[mama2one]

http://dev.hgms.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Jasper-Miocene-Wood-GCAGS-2008.pdf


did it look like figure # 14
near end of abstract

 

[HARK!]

http://dev.hgms.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Jasper-Miocene-Wood-GCAGS-2008.pdf


did it look like figure # 14
near end of abstract

https://dev.hgms.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Jasper-Miocene-Wood-GCAGS-2008.pdf

The wood in that photo actually looks like petrified wood. What I saw was more rounded and looked like weathered wood. When I first saw the ravine; I thought that the wood had washed down into the ravine. I had to climb over and step on these logs to navigate the ravine. They felt like wood.

The log in the picture looks like it's resting on top of soil. My logs were sticking out of sedimentary rock.

Short answer, no.

Thanks for your input. I'm starting to think that I need to go back and get pictures. Should I take a whittling knife?

 

[Hank77]

Petrified wood that feels like wood? Weird! What about its' mass?

Well, now I'm embarrassed. All these many, many years I thought that it was small piece of wood stuck in a large clam or oyster shell that was found at 9,000 ft. on a mountain. Just as I was examining it again my grandson asked me what I was doing. He says, "Oh you mean the barnacle in the hole?"

I could find it again, if I set the same course with my GPS; but it might take a couple of days of stopping at every exit near a bridge.

If you do don't go alone and be very careful, please.

 

[SkyWriting]

Can anyone explain this?

There are many cement mines in that area. You might have found a case of natural cement formations after a flood. You just need limestone and sand.

 

[HARK!]

There are many cement mines in that area. You might have found a case of natural cement formations after a flood. You just need limestone and sand.

That's an interesting hypothesis. There is a lot of CaCO3 in Texas; but as I recall, don't you need to heat the limestone to a very high temperature (like 600 degrees or something), and crush it into a powder, to make concrete?

 

[HARK!]

It depends.

Based on Australia sandstone in semi-arid conditions, there's an initial weathering of ~0.5mm over then first century or so, which then accelerates to around 1.25 mm per 100 years when the initial harder surface layer is eroded away.

Sandstone in certain fast flowing river conditions may erode at rates as high as 5mm per year.

So, based on those assumptions, 20-30 feet of sandstone would take as few as 122,000 years or as many as 732,000 years to erode away.

I've been thinking about this for hours now.

There was a stream bed in the Northeastern US, that would walk regularly as a boy. There was a lot of development in that area; so with a heavy rain, the stream bed would change dramatically. At some parts it was down to bedrock. I think it was gneiss. In other parts there were varying sizes of, mostly quartz, river rock.

There was bend, where there was a steep cliff, sometimes an overhang, of small quartz stones and clay. After one serious storm, the riverbed dropped at least a foot; and then the lower part of that cliff revealed a bank of sandstone about one foot out of the water. The quartz stones coming around the bend had ground away that much sandstone in just one storm.

This could help to explain what I saw in Texas. Most of the wood that I saw at this site was in the ravine. This could explain why the wood was exposed there, without having rotted away. It could have been a dramatic flood that carried stones which ground out the ravine. The only wood that I saw in the cliff was the 2"X18" stick. This was found in an area that looked like it might have been carved out in a whirlpool.

However, this still doesn't explain how the wood would have been preserved while the stone was being formed.

 

[dqhall]

View attachment 284346

https://dev.hgms.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Jasper-Miocene-Wood-GCAGS-2008.pdf

The wood in that photo actually looks like petrified wood. What I saw was more rounded and looked like weathered wood. When I first saw the ravine; I thought that the wood had washed down into the ravine. I had to climb over and step on these logs to navigate the ravine. They felt like wood.

The log in the picture looks like it's resting on top of soil. My logs were sticking out of sedimentary rock.

Short answer, no.

Thanks for your input. I'm starting to think that I need to go back and get pictures. Should I take a whittling knife?

You might need to take a chunk of your find to a university geology department if you want confirmation. The temperature and pressure of lithification for sandstone would cook wood. There were fern leaf prints in coal, but the fern plant was carbonized. I am not convinced of your “discovery.”

 

[HARK!]

That appeared like reddish clay or alluvium to me, not sandstone. You might need to take a chunk to a university geology department if you want confirmation.

That's not my photo. I was responding the PDF that christine40 provided.

 

[dqhall]

That's not my photo. I was responding the PDF that christine40 provided.

You should have taken detailed photos. It took millions of years for sandstone to form. Then it formed under pressure and with heat. Plant material was carbonized or replaced with quartz as in petrified wood. The Himalayas are rising an inch per year. Sub-oceanic trenches sank. The Dead Sea floor sank as the earth’s crust rifted in that area.

 

[Job 33:6]

I'm looking for answers. If these facts are sensational; then let's get the scientific community involved. Again, if this is news; I'm willing to work with legitimate investigators.

Nobody can give answers if you cannot provide more than hearsay. It is impossible to conduct scientific inquiry without observation.

But yes, if you feel the finds are sensational, bring some photographs here and we can have a look at them.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

I once saw pictures of an axe, or maybe a hammer, that was purported to be set in sedimentary stone. I had considered that it might be a hoax. Those considerations started diminishing after this experience.

There are a number of examples of calcified items being cited as evidence of time travel or advanced civilizations in ancient times. The claims are false, but the items really are calcified. It can happen relatively quickly (e.g. decades or centuries) where the water running over them is very hard, forming limestone concretion; e.g. the London hammer.

 

[eleos1954]

Maybe. How many years does it take for 20-30 feet of sandstone to solidify? How long does it take for it to erode away again; but the big question is can it do all of this before the wood, that is buried in the rock, rots away? The answer is obviously yes. As a matter of fact, what I saw demonstrates that the rock can be eroded away faster than the wood rots, when it is exposed to the elements.

It's pretty bizarre.

I have just been through a pretty significant flood on my 3 acre property ... that's why I thought about it. The power of water is amazing (can actually push things through/into softer rock) ... also when something is buried ... the rotting process is largely "insulated" from further outside elements.

If a major flood hits .... and then another does not occur for quite a while very possible the wood does not decay all that much .... dries out ... rotting comes mostly from moisture .... I think ????

Dunno ... was just a thought ;o)