Bindal Gems

Other Details

Peanut wood" is a silicified (petrified) wood, generally of a black color with numerous borings, which were made by a marine wood-boring bivalve, Teredo.This petrified wood was called peanut wood by the first people who found it, because they obviously thought that the light colored areas resembled peanuts. These light colored areas are what used to be boreholes in the original wood. Before the wood was petrified, it was washed into the ocean as driftwood. It was then attacked by small marine shellfish called "Teredo" ...another name for these little clams is "shipworm".  They bore a small tunnel into the wood & eventually the entire piece can be riddled with boreholes. When the wood became waterlogged, it then sank to the bottom of the ocean & settled into the mud. The boreholes then filled with the light colored radiolarian sediment.  Some time later, petrification began.                    The wood is of several varieties, the main ones being "Araucaria"...a conifer & podocarp.     It is found along the edges of the Kennedy Ranges about 100 miles inland from the coastal town of Carnarvon, Western Australia. The geological formation that it occurs in is called   "Windalia Radiolarite".  The age is Cretaceous.....which makes it around 70 million years old.