Petrified Wood?

[Sertile]

Yeah, so this was on the front page today:

Scientists Create Petrified Wood in Days
YAKIMA, Wash. Jan 25, 2005 — Researchers at a national science laboratory in south-central Washington have found a way to achieve in days what takes Mother Nature millions of years converting wood to mineral.

More here: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=440123

So not to seem overly suspicious, but if scientists can make wood petrify in a lab in a matter of days then how exactly do we know that it takes millions of years in nature? I mean, based on this it seems to me that it could happen just as fast in the real world, assuming the conditions were right for petrifiation. Doesn't this open the door for cataclysms?

 

[Anonymous]

"To create petrified wood, the researchers bought pine and poplar boards at a lumber yard. They gave a half-inch cube of wood an acid bath, then soaked it in a silica solution for days. The wood was air-dried, cooked in an argon-filled furnace at temperatures as high as 1,400 degrees and cooled in argon to room temperature."

The lab (http://www.pnl.gov/) process seems pretty unlikely for a natural one: an acid bath, silica soak, drying and then heating in a nonreactive atmosphere? I can't find a link to the process details, but even assuming a naturally-acheivable acid, can you propose a method for how this might occur naturally?

 

[Sertile]

Nope. I mostly just wondered if anyone would latch onto that.

 

[lopaka]

Like Creationists?

EDIT: I thought cataclysms were thoroughly revived in the scientific community over the last 25 years? I know it was seen as very pre-Darwin/Biblical throughout the most of the 20th, when gradualism was ascendent. But then came the Alvarez's and after that Shoemaker-Levy and it was OK again to treat them seriously.

 

[Anonymous]

There's a story by G.K. Chesterton, in which his priest-detective(it's been forever since I've read any of his stuff) proves that petrification can happen quickly and naturally.

I'll snoop around.. but yeah, this will probably show up in the next Awake! magazine...

 

[Sertile]

Interesting. I think my mother subscribes to Awake, actually. The thing with cataclysms are, I think they're okay as long as you're talking about a crater now, but not so much when applied to something like the Grand Canyon.

 

[Melf]

There's a story by G.K. Chesterton, in which his priest-detective(it's been forever since I've read any of his stuff) proves that petrification can happen quickly and naturally.

father brown you mean?