Araucarioxylon arizonicum

Araucarioxylon arizonicum is an extinct species of conifer that is the state fossil of Arizona. The species is known from massive tree trunks that weather out of the Chinle Formation in desert badlands of northern Arizona and adjacent New Mexico, most notably in the 378.51 square kilometres Petrified Forest National Park. There, these trunks are locally so abundant that they have been used as building materials.

Araucarioxylon arizonicum

Falconaumanni · CC BY-SA 3.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
AraucarioxylonPBDB
Diet
"photoautotroph"PBDB, for Streptophyta

Time the record covers

At most 36 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 237 Mya and 201.4 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Middle Triassic — about 0 of 12 occurrencesLate Triassic — about 12 of 12 occurrencesLate TriassicEarly Jurassic — about 0 of 12 occurrences238–236 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences236–235 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences235–234 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences234–233 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences233–232 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences232–230 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences230–229 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences229–228 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences228–227 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences227–225 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences225–224 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences224–223 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences223–222 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences222–220 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences220–219 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences219–218 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences218–217 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences217–215 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences215–214 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences214–213 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences213–212 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences212–211 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences211–209 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences209–208 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences208–207 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences207–206 Mya — about 0.6 occurrences206–204 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences204–203 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences203–202 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences202–201 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences237.7 Mya200.7 Mya

12 occurrences of Araucarioxylon arizonicum on record, most of them in the Late Triassic. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

12 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

1 formation

Chinle — 35.20°N, 108.20°WChinle — 36.10°N, 106.20°WChinle — 34.86°N, 109.78°WChinle — 34.81°N, 109.88°W

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The named rock units Araucarioxylon arizonicum has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed.

Araucarioxylon arizonicum and its relatives

Late Triassic

Where Araucarioxylon arizonicum and its relatives were recorded in the Late Triassic.

Found in the same rock

61 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 12 sites for Araucarioxylon arizonicum, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

3 references

Each of the 12 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Araucarioxylon arizonicum

Credit
Falconaumanni
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Araucarioxylon arizonicum was found in Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itAraucarioxylon through timeFormations of the Late TriassicThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Knowlton 1888