21.2" Polished Rip-Cut Petrified Wood Dish - Madagascar

Polished Rip-Cut Petrified Wood Dish - Madagascar #339447

This is a huge dish/bowl made from a rip-cut section of petrified Araucaria wood from Ambilobe, Madagascar. It measures 21.2" by 14" and has been carved and polished into a long dish, showing off the amazing colorful mineralization and grain preservation of this fossil. It is from the early Triassic period and is approximately 220 million years old, close to the time the first dinosaurs appeared on the planet.

The base has been cut flat and lightly polished to prevent scratching of the surface it sits on.

About Madagascar Petrified Wood

Madagascar petrified wood comes primarily from extensive Triassic-aged deposits in the Mahajanga Basin of northwestern Madagascar, where ancient conifer forests—often attributed to species related to Araucarioxylon—were buried by volcanic ash and floodplain sediments roughly 225–240 million years ago. Over immense spans of time, silica-rich fluids percolated through these sediments, replacing the cellular structure of the wood with chalcedony, jasper, agate, and quartz while preserving growth rings, bark textures, and even microscopic details. The region’s unique geochemistry—especially its iron, manganese, and occasionally copper content—produces the vivid palette Madagascar petrified wood is famous for, including deep brick reds, golden yellows, smoky blacks, and pastel pinks. Many logs are found fully silicified and naturally fractured into large, rounded segments that local artisans cut into slabs, spheres, eggs, and freeforms. These deposits stretch across arid badlands where erosion steadily exposes new material, making Madagascar one of the world’s premier sources of highly colorful, beautifully patterned fossil wood.