While at the bead store last week, I could not resist a strand of barrel-shaped 'Wooden Lace Jasper' beads. The stripes, the colors, the weight of them...they just seemed like the perfect thing to make a chunky necklace to welcome the arrival of Fall. I walked around and around the store with them in my hand, looking for just the right strand of something else that would complement the Jasper, yet provide some textural interest of its own. Finally, I settled on a reddish-brown strand of triangular Bayong Wood beads. Come to find out, selecting wood was a very coincidental pairing...
Wooden Lace Jasper, like all Jaspers, is actually Agate. The difference being that Jasper is used to refer to the varieties that are not translucent, while Agate refers to those which are. But even more interesting, as I discovered while researching the beads, is that Wooden Lace Jasper, aka Agate, is actually Petrified Wood!
Petrified wood is formed when trees are covered with mud, sand and mineral-rich water. As the wood decomposes, the minerals around it begin to combine with the carbon, forming Agate. What results is an opaque 'rock' with bands of color that represent the layers of wood, sand and mud. Typically, (as with the beads I bought), petrified wood is brown/black, red, tan or orange...or a great mix of all of these!
The largest known concentration of petrified wood is in Arizona and was first "discovered" and written about in 1853. The Petrified Forest National Park was later established by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1906 after conservationist John Muir convinced him of its uniqueness and value as a fossil recovery site. To this day, the Park is one of the most continually-worked archaeological and geological research sites in the world.
Archaeologists working within the Park have determined that people were present in this area 13,000 years ago. "Agate House", a dwelling or ceremonial lodge within the Park boundaries, is believed to have been constructed by people of the Anasazi tribe using blocks of petrified wood as long as 900 years ago. Carbon dating of the blocks used in this building show the tree from which the blocks came to have been alive 200 million years ago! The largest petrified wood log found within the Park is over 190 feet long and weighs 168 lbs per cubic foot. Wow. Petrified wood is one of the densest materials known to man.
Because it is illegal to remove rocks from a National Park, it is unlikely that the beads I purchased are from Arizona. I'd hate to get myself or any of you in trouble just for owning a great looking piece of jewelry. But other sources of petrified wood in Argentina, Egypt and the Czech Republic are routinely 'mined' for commercial purposes. Lucky for us---because now these beads made of really, really old wood can be combined with some new wooden beads and no one will have to go to jail for wearing them!
Check out the photos on the website--link below my name.
Until next week--Own a piece of pre-history!
