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Petrified Wood In Days, Not Millions Of Years

Posted by timothy on from the wood-rocks dept.

prostoalex writes "Any petrified wood enthusiast would tell you that a quality product takes millions of years to mature, following Mother Nature's course, which, of course, is very frustrating for anyone experimenting. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory now managed to get the process in few days, USA Today says. The scientific achievement will be beneficial for "separating industrial chemicals, filtering pollutants and soaking up contamination"."

4 of 76 comments (clear)

  1. Carbon Dating by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Does this word exactly replicate petrified wood? Have they tried carbon dating the samples? Could this lead to some debate about how accurate our picture of the world based on carbon dating really is?

    1. Re:Carbon Dating by pv2b · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Heh. I don't think whatever process they're using will change the half-life of carbon-14. That's a nuclear process, not a chemical one.

      It would be cool though, if you could accellerate radioactive decay that easilly. You could just blast your nuclear waste with it and not have to store any more nuclear waste far underground.

    2. Re:Carbon Dating by NonSequor · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Well, you could take a sample of naturally occurring carbon and separate its isotopes. Then you could make a mixture of isotopes to fudge the data for the appropriate age. After this, you react your carbon with oxygen to form carbon dioxide. Now here's the tricky part: you have to grow your tree in an enclosed environment containing only the carbon you've altered to have the desired ratio. The room will have to be sterilized to remove any organisms with the naturally occurring ratio of carbon in their cells and you'll have to remove the existing carbon dioxide from the air.

      If you do this carefully and leave a negligible amount of natural carbon behind you should get a tree which will carbon test as though it's ancient.

      This would be horrifically expensive though.

      --
      My only political goal is to see to it that no political party achieves its goals.
  2. Re:Wait, let me get this straight... by Almost-Retired · · Score: 2, Interesting

    There are in fact some of those around. We're the ones who show up at some public doings in a bolo (string) tie, and the clip has a hunk of 'Tiger Eye' as the decorator. Tiger Eye is in fact petrified wood, with a semi-translucent grain pattern that changes drasticly with the light and viewing angle, usually a golden tan in general color. Rather highly prized by me, I grab a new piece everytime I get a chance. Its also made into rings, but its soft enough that it wears rather dull if not repolished frequently.

    Bolo ties for such outings are one of my trademarks, either with a good sized piece of Tiger Eye, or an even bigger hunk of sterling silver and turquois crafted for me by some Navaho friends many years ago.

    --
    Cheers, Gene