26/04/2026
Fossilized peanut wood began its life as a conifer tree on land in the area now known as Western Australia. During the Cretaceous period, these trees died, rivers carried them as a piece of driftwood into a shallow sea, and a species of marine clam that loved to eat wood and lived in the Australian sea, was able to smell the nearby wood and swim to it. These clams would attach themselves to it and start eating, excavating a deep tunnel into the soft, mushy wood. The waterlogged wood would then settle on the sea floor. Over many years, the shells from dying, tiny plankton living in the water over the wood would sink to the bottom and accumulate in the bore holes— creating the white peanut shapes. Millions of years later, the buried wood would fossilize, then eventually be uplifted as part of Western Australia’s Kennedy Ranges, which are now above sea.
