A polished freeform cut from a fossil log, from a tree that grew on ground that was not an island yet.
When this tree was standing, Madagascar was not separate from anything. It sat locked inside Gondwana, pressed against what is now east Africa, and would not begin pulling away for tens of millions of years after this trunk fell. Everything Madagascar is now known for, the lemurs and the baobabs and the long list of species found nowhere else on Earth, follows from an isolation that had not started yet.
The wood is silica now. Groundwater carrying dissolved quartz worked through the buried trunk and replaced the tissue cell by cell, keeping the grain and the growth rings in place while the organic material went. The colours are from what that water was carrying, mostly iron and manganese.
Cut as a freeform rather than sliced flat, so the grain runs across curved faces instead of sitting on one plane.
Mineral: Silicified wood, quartz and chalcedony (SiO₂) replacing the original tissue
Crystal system: Trigonal
Origin: Ambilobe area, northern Madagascar Age: Triassic, roughly 200 to 250 million years
Hardness: 6.5 to 7 on the Mohs scale; hard and durable, though the polish will dull if it is knocked about
Treatment: None
Dimensions: 9.35 x 8.27 x 22 cm
Weight: 2.76 kg
You will receive the exact piece photographed.