PhysOrg: Petrified Wood in Days

PhysOrg: Petrified Wood in Days: "California has Silicon Valley. Could a Silicon Forest in Washington be next? A team of materials scientists from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory is on it.
Yongsoon Shin and colleagues at the Department of Energy lab have converted wood to mineral, achieving in days what it takes nature millions of years to do in such places as the Gingko Petrified Forest, an hour up the Columbia River. There, trees likely felled in a cataclysmic eruption and, buried without oxygen beneath lava, leached out their woody compounds and sponged up the soil's minerals over the eons. "
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Pretty wild. I can see artists one day making wood carvings, then petrifying them. Or take your favorite bonsai and preserve it.