Washington
Type |
Symbol |
Year Est. |
|---|---|---|
State Gem |
Petrified Wood
|
1975 |
State Fossil |
Columbian Mammoth
|
1998 |
State Gem: Petrified Wood
Petrified wood is not actual wood, however it was wood at one point. Petrified wood is a fossil that formed from pieces of wood that have been mineralized. Mineralization is a process where groundwater moves through the wood and replaces all of the wood molecules with molecules of other substances, most often silica (i.e. quartz). This means that petrified wood actually isn't wood anymore, but a fossil of the former wood.
Related: Arizona State Fossil - Petrified Wood (Araucarioxylon arizonicum); Louisiana State Fossil: Petrified Palmwood; Mississippi State Stone: Petrified Wood; North Dakota State Fossil: Teredo Petrified Wood; Texas State Stone: Petrified Palmwood
State Fossil: Columbian Mammoth
Related: Alaska State Fossil - Woolly Mammoth (Mammuthus primigenius); Nebraska State Fossil - Mammoth; South Carolina State Fossil - Columbian Mammoth; Vermont State Terrestrial Fossil - Mount Holly Mammoth Tooth & Tusk
References
https://statesymbolsusa.org/states/united-states/washington
Geology of Washington's National Parks
Through Pictures
(at least the one's I have been to)
None yet!