What's Petrified

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I know the essential pleasure of the fossil does exist in excavating it by my own hands. Although some rare dinosaur fossils have been found recently in Japan, fossil resources are poor by nature here in quantity and quality. In addition, I do not have enough time to do it rightly, so I cannot but buy some good fossils during my journey, especially to US. It is my real enjoyment and peace of mind to see them in my hands or arms (I have heavy one). In my daily life, the view of mine can spread not more than a few days or a few months. Those fossils, however, give me a big help to picture to myself the origin of life, tens of millions of years for the course of evolution, and an extremely tiny existence in it. Seeing the night sky might be the same kind of action, but fossils are easier for me to understand.

Collection #1: TRILOBITE		Tri-Lobed: The name trilobite was given to these creatures because their exoskeletons are divided into three distinct lobes, or parts. The soft parts and the legs on the lower surface of the animal were very seldom preserved. Whole fossil trilobites are surprisingly rare, but they can be found in rocks from the Cambrian to the Permian Period (about 590 to 250 million years old). They became extinct after that. This one is about 120 mm long.

PETRIFIED WOODS

Collection #2

280x280x10 mm.
It is so hard to find such a nice blackish petrified wood with those clearly visible growth rings.
In Japan, this one would deserve the exhibition in a museum of natural history.

Hardness: 6 1/2 - 7
Fossil Description: Douglas Fir
Taxon: Washington, USA
Provenance: Mesozoic Era, Triassic Period
Formation: 200 Million Years Old

Collection #3


370x190x170 mm, 20.0 kg. This is a 'heavily' excellent article which I bought in New York and carried in my arms all the way to Japan. To be exact, it was so heavy that the airline refused to put it in my suitcase; therefore I could not but carry it with me into a plane as if it was nothing. But it was really something. After arriving at Kansai Airport, its weight decided me to put it in my suitcase. Sad to say, however, wheels of the suitcase were melted down before I took a hundred steps forward to my home. It was the worst situation. This is not a fiction but a good example which shows that a man could do a lot for something he likes. Finally I got home to place the petrified wood at the entrance, which has never been moved from the exact point.

Collection #4


This is the real millennium gift from my friend Manfred and his Family in Texas. Dale, another good friend of mine, game me the following comments: Petrified palm wood is the "official" stone of the state of Texas. During the Cretaceous time much of eastern Texas was where a large river met the ocean. Palm trees would be uprooted in storms and would drift to the ocean. Eventually the trees were buried in mud and became fossilized. We think this is true because when we find fossil palm wood we also find fossils of ocean animals.

Petrification, one kind of fossilization, occurs when chemical changes cause a mineral to grow, grain by grain, in place of the original tissues of the animal or plant. Growth rings, like those that can be seen in the wood of trees living today, show clearly in those polished surfaces of petrified wood. They provide useful information about the seasonal growth of those trees, and the climate at the time those trees were living.

Collection #5:
COPROLITE (Dinosaur Dung)

Collection #6:
COPROLITE (Mammalian Dung)

Slice of Fossil Dinosaur Dung (290x130x7 mm)
Fossil Description: Coprolite
Taxon: Brazil
Provenance: Cretaceous
Formation: 100 Million Years Old

Fossil Mammalian Dung (150x50x40 mm)
Fossil Description: Coprolite
Taxon:
Provenance:
Formation: Million Years Old

Collection #7: COPROLITE (Beautiful Dung)


	This is the real millennium gift from my friend Manfred and his Family. I did not notice these beautiful stones were coprolites. They are too beautiful as dung, aren't they?

Nobody would understand how I was joyful when I met coprolites. General scatology was my favorite field. It is really great that the dung can be preserved as the fossil without the smell. Moreover, all fossils of mammalian dung I know are brown!! Coprolites are greatly different from other fossils which have the dignity with musty smell of museum. Coprolites make me imagine the reality and dynamism; animals bore down and felt relieved after that. I can share the experience with those ancient animals because I repeat the same process every day (dangerous?). I suppose it would be terribly difficult to find such fantastic stars as coprolites in the field of astronomy.

Collection #8: EDMONTOSAURUS VERTEBRA		Edmontosauras vertebra (tail). Edmontosaurus was 40 feet long plant eater. I purchased this one at Dinosaur World, Central Park Mall, in San Antonio, Texas, about $15 taxi drive from its downtown. I like its color and surface reality. Fossil Dinosaur Bone (65x65x60 mm) Fossil Description: Edmontosaurus Vertebra Taxon: Montana, USA Provenance: Cretaceous Formation: 136 to 65 Million Years Old

Collection #9: DINOSAUR BONE		This is a slice of fossil dinosaur bone. Bone marrow tissues can be clearly observed. In addition, its color is coincidental with that of the live bone marrow. As this fossil or petrified woods, there are fossils which we can observe the inside of original tissues in those polished surfaces. Fossil Dinosaur Bone (120x10x6 mm) Fossil Description: Unknown Taxon: Utah, USA Provenance: Jurassic Formation: 165 Million Years Old

Collection #10: AMMONITE	Collection #11: AMMONITE

270x170x12 mm. Small but many ammonites can be seen in the rock. I bought this plate at 'Nature Company' in Union Station, Washington DC, I believe.	45x30x45 mm. This is a nice old memory. When I traveled around Thailand - India - Nepal in 1979, a Tibetan peddler gave me this ammonite at Pokhara, a small village in the deep mountains of Nepal. I gave him antibiotic tablets for this ammonite. He seemed to be so glad to have such 'beautiful' medicine for the birth control. I never said so, but he wanted to understand so. Although this ammonite looks like a small stone (left photo), it cracks into two pieces (right photo), then ammonite appears. So I like this. <Plate & Mug with Ammonite Cast>

Collection #12: NUNMULITE (Left Photo)	Collection #13: BRACHIOPODS

75x75x5 mm. A very big foraminifer which lived in the warm sea of the Eocene Epoch. This fossil (left photo) was replaced with fool's gold (pyrites).	50x25x35 mm. A group of brachiopods. Having shells, a kind of mollusks such as octopuses and shellfish.

Collection #14: STROMATOLITE		It was stromatolite, a kind of blue-green algae, that generated oxygen first in the ancient sea of the Precambrian Era (3 - 2 billion years ago). This sample is not the fossil of stromatolite itself but the banded structure of mud (gold), iron (black) and ferric oxide (red), which had been formed according to the alteration of stromatolite activities. Thus, it shows the time. It is very fantastic that we can see living stromatolite generating oxygen still now in west Australia. If they did not appear on this earth by chance, all following active living things would never exist.

Fossil Description: Stromatolite (130x110x30 mm) Taxon: Australia Provenance: Formation: 2 Billion Years Old

Collection #15: BLASTOID
		17x12x12 mm. A group of extinct echinoderms. Among them are sea urchins (echinoids), sea lilies (crinoids), starfish (asteroids), and brittlestars (ophiuroids). Fossil echinoderms range back to the Cambrian. Blastoids looked like stemmed crinoids but did not have arms. Pentremites sp., Mississippian Millstadt, Illinois, USA Paint Creek Formation

Collection #16: FOSSIL CLUB	Collection #17: OCTOPUS FOOTPRINTS?
		Although footprints of dinosaurs or birds are very famous, I have never seen octopus footprints. I made this octopus footprints from real octopus which I bought at the local supermarket, using copy silicone 'Copic.' It looks like the real because I decorated it with fine sand. I recognize voices saying 'Oh, stupid!!.' There are some scientists, however, who suggested that the famous archaeopteryx was counterfeit with enough scientific evidence in its own way. When I said, 'Here are octopus footprints,' though most of them were nonchalant, they did not doubt it was the counterfeit. What is the truth?
Fossil Club (30x8 mm) Fossil Description: Pinnixa galliheri Taxon: Carmel Vly, CA, USA Provenance: Monterey Fm / U. Miocene Formation: 8 Million Years Old

Collection #18: STONE FOOTPRINT AND HANDPRINT OF HUMANS?

Mio, 3 Years Old. Yui, 5 Months Old.	Kai, A Few Weeks Old.	Must be petrified on the Moon!

Since July, 1998 Last Update = October 12, 2000