I collect, cut, and sometimes polish petrified wood. In theory I could run some on a lathe, but it's got to stay wet while cutting / grinding / shaping it. It would be a slow process, but not a bad idea. The tan colored piece and the 3 slices in my hand are supposedly oak. The colors of the rock have nothing to do with the original color of the wood. But just by chance the one piece does look like white oak heart wood.
By collect I mean that I try to find it in the wild. I suppose that I also have a collection, so I collect in that way as well.
The 80 million year old thing didn't even click but now it does. I must've been so mesmerized by that grain.
I was being a little too cute. I should have just said it was petrified wood. If you like wood as much as I do (and you do, and everyone else around here does) there is nothing cooler than rocks made from wood.
I got another load yesterday of the same wood shown in my original post. This time there were green needles attached to some of the logs. They were dark green, in bunches of two, and snapped in half when bent over. That pretty much guarantees that the species is in fact red pine. I'm actually excited to have a bunch of red pine to burn. I've burned it in the past (not knowing it was red pine) and it was the best softwood I have burned. I've never had any doug fir, which I understand is also good firewood.
