My pleasant evening stroll on the beach yesterday was filled with little surprises. I found not one, not two, but eight chunks of petrified driftwood by the time I was done. The specimens that wash up here are from the Paleocene, about 65 million years ago. Pretty amazing when you think about all the steps involved: the trees had to grow, die, wash down a river, get ground into smooth, small pieces, and then (through heat and/or pressure) be inundated with minerals to become “petrified,” erode out of a rock formation, and wash up on this beach for me to discover.

Petrified Driftwood, Lincoln City, Oregon May 2018