Entry № 221
Green Opalised Wood
Petrified Wood (Green Common Opal)
A tree replaced, cell by cell, with green silica.
Chakra
Heart · Root
Element
Earth · Water
Zodiac
Virgo · Capricorn
I. The Metaphysical Reading
How the stone has been held.
Green opalised wood is worked with as a stone of slow, faithful preservation, kept by practitioners tending to lineage — ancestral, professional, or ecological. It is held to honour anything that has been replaced without being erased.
- Chakra
- Heart · Root
- Element
- Earth · Water
- Zodiac
- Virgo · Capricorn
- Keynote
- A tree replaced, cell by cell, with green silica.
II. The Scientific Reading
What the lattice actually does.
Opalised wood is petrified wood in which original organic tissue has been replaced, cell by cell, by hydrated amorphous silica (common opal) rather than the quartz that produces classic 'agate' petrifaction. When the silicifying groundwater carried trace nickel or included celadonite, the resulting fossil takes on the green tint of common green opal while preserving the original wood grain, growth rings and sometimes cellular structure.
- Formula
- SiO₂·nH₂O replacing original wood cell walls
- System
- Amorphous
- Hardness
- 5.5 – 6.5 (Mohs)
- Provenance
- Indonesia (Java, Sulawesi), Australia, USA
References & Sources
Independent mineralogical references used to verify the scientific details above.
Mineral Profile
Fact Sheet
- Chemical Formula
- SiO₂·nH₂O replacing original wood cell walls
- Crystal System
- Amorphous
- Mohs Hardness
- 5.5 – 6.5 (Mohs)
- Density
- 1.98 – 2.30 g/cm³
- Refractive Index
- 1.42 – 1.47
- Provenance
- Indonesia (Java, Sulawesi), Australia, USA
- Color Origin
- Preserved wood grain in mossy green common opal
Related Crystals
Stones that share this lattice
Next in the Atlas
Green Sardonyx
Layered strength in green, white, and earth.
