Petrified wood slice

Araucaria is one of the types of fossils. Today one can see the forests of these tall (up to 90 m) majestic coniferous trees in the Southern Hemisphere - from Indonesia and Australia to Brazil and Chile, while once, in the Mesozoic era, araucaria grew all over the planet.

This family of conifers appeared in the Triassic, when it was still a long way to go until the dominance of dinosaurs. This specimen from Madagascar is one of the early specimens of araucaria

The mineral that replaced wood in the process of petrification is chalcedony, a valuable ornamental stone and a type of quartz.