"Petrified" Redwood Forest


Today when I was in my University's library, one of the students had put
up a poster about a study they did out on the wild lands of Ft. Ord, where
they apparently had found these odd, gray columnar formations of sandstone
in a road cut (in contrast with the reddish sand stone surrounding them). 

It seems that upon further study, they turned out to be molds of Redwood
trees that had gotten buried in a sand dune in the Pliocine or Pleistocene
(not sure). Anyway, they showed some pictures of the stumps, and they are
perfectly round. There were also double columns, much like Sequoia
sempervirens forms when two shoots grow into a double trunked tree. They
said that these were molds of the trees rather than mineral depositions.
It was interesting to think that once upon a time all of the chapparal
areas were wet, moist redwood forest. 

Just thought i'd share with you all


Barry



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