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1.95" Polished Petrified "Peanut Wood" Heart - Australia
This is a 1.95" wide, polished petrified “peanut wood” heart from Australia. Formed during the Cretaceous Period, it displays the distinctive light-filled shipworm borings that give peanut wood its signature look, all brought out beautifully by a glossy polish.
About Petrified "Peanut Wood"
Petrified peanut wood from Australia is one of the most distinctive forms of fossilized wood, instantly recognizable by its bold white “peanut-shaped” spots set within a darker brown to black matrix. These striking patterns aren’t growth rings or mineral veins—they’re the preserved burrows of ancient marine shipworms (Teredo-type clam larvae) that infested the drifting conifer wood roughly 110–120 million years ago. As the wood floated in warm Cretaceous seas, the larvae bored deep, cylindrical tunnels through the soft interior. When the wood eventually sank and became buried in sediment, these empty borings later filled with light-colored minerals such as silica, creating the high-contrast textures that make peanut wood so recognizable and collectible today.
The host wood itself originated from ancient Araucaria trees, but it’s the activity of these shipworms that tells the real story. Their borings reveal that the wood spent time afloat in prehistoric oceans before fossilization, capturing a rare moment where marine and terrestrial environments intersected. As mineral-rich groundwater permeated the buried driftwood, the organic tissue was gradually replaced by silica, preserving both the wood structure and the shipworm tunnels in remarkable detail. The result is a visually stunning fossil that showcases not only the anatomy of an ancient conifer, but also the imprint of the tiny organisms that once lived inside it—making Australian peanut wood a beautiful intersection of biology, geology, and deep-time storytelling.
Petrified peanut wood from Australia is one of the most distinctive forms of fossilized wood, instantly recognizable by its bold white “peanut-shaped” spots set within a darker brown to black matrix. These striking patterns aren’t growth rings or mineral veins—they’re the preserved burrows of ancient marine shipworms (Teredo-type clam larvae) that infested the drifting conifer wood roughly 110–120 million years ago. As the wood floated in warm Cretaceous seas, the larvae bored deep, cylindrical tunnels through the soft interior. When the wood eventually sank and became buried in sediment, these empty borings later filled with light-colored minerals such as silica, creating the high-contrast textures that make peanut wood so recognizable and collectible today.
The host wood itself originated from ancient Araucaria trees, but it’s the activity of these shipworms that tells the real story. Their borings reveal that the wood spent time afloat in prehistoric oceans before fossilization, capturing a rare moment where marine and terrestrial environments intersected. As mineral-rich groundwater permeated the buried driftwood, the organic tissue was gradually replaced by silica, preserving both the wood structure and the shipworm tunnels in remarkable detail. The result is a visually stunning fossil that showcases not only the anatomy of an ancient conifer, but also the imprint of the tiny organisms that once lived inside it—making Australian peanut wood a beautiful intersection of biology, geology, and deep-time storytelling.
$25
SPECIES
Aruacaria sp.
LOCATION
Jacobs Gully, Mooka Station, Western Australia
FORMATION
Windalia Radiolarite Formation
SIZE
1.95" wide
CATEGORY
SUB CATEGORY
ITEM
#341914
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