AA-2026-D1DD62
On the image
Someone has laid a rock hammer down in the scree like a ruler next to a specimen, which is exactly what it is: the standard unit of scale for any amateur geologist who ever wanted to prove a find was real and not just an interesting rock he was excited about for no good reason. The banded, woody-looking chunk half-buried in the talus is almost certainly petrified wood, a tree that traded its cellulose for silica millions of years ago and never got the memo that it was supposed to rot.
In the 1950s this was a respectable weekend hobby, not an eccentricity. Families drove out into desert washes with a hammer, a canvas bag, and complete confidence that a piece of fossilized log was more valuable sitting on someone's mantelpiece than staying where it had been for the last several geologic epochs. The hammer's leather-wrapped handle has clearly done real work, which tells you this was not a tourist's souvenir hunt but someone who took the hobby, and the rock, seriously.
No person appears in the frame, which is its own small statement: the collector trusted the hammer to do the talking, confident that anyone looking at the picture later would understand instantly what six inches of tool-length next to a rock was supposed to prove.
Visually related — by likeness
Rock Hammer Beside Petrified Wood, American Southwest, 1950s. 1950–1959. Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library, AA-2026-D1DD62. https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/rock-hammer-beside-petrified-wood-american-southwest-1950s.
@misc{aaAA2026D1DD62,
title = {Rock Hammer Beside Petrified Wood, American Southwest, 1950s},
year = {1950–1959},
howpublished = {Archive \& Atlas, Historical Image Library},
note = {Accession AA-2026-D1DD62},
url = {https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/rock-hammer-beside-petrified-wood-american-southwest-1950s}
}TY - ART TI - Rock Hammer Beside Petrified Wood, American Southwest, 1950s PY - 1950–1959 PB - Archive & Atlas, Historical Image Library AN - AA-2026-D1DD62 UR - https://thearchive.archiveandatlas.com/library/rock-hammer-beside-petrified-wood-american-southwest-1950s ER -
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