WHEN LOCALITIES ARE LOST: SCIENTISTS, COLLECTIONS AND THE CHILEAN FOSSIL WOOD HISTORY AT VALPARAISO. HISTORIA NATURAL Tercera Serie Volumen 13 (1) 2023/243-271

Abstract

Historical fossil localities are frequently lost because, among other factors, the outcrops have been actively mined or erased by urban development. It would be what happened with historical fossil localities from the old Valparaiso province, in which naturalists, such as C. Darwin, J. Dana, R. Philippi and J. Brüggen collected fossil specimens. Based on the historical evolution of underreported fossil wood localities and local historical collection records, we report on the fossil localities of Valparaíso, Placilla-Curauma and Algarrobo. Historically, most of the early collections were sent overseas and their final destination is mostly unknown. In addition, most historical collections deposited in local museums have lost their labels, limiting the information of the specimens. Nevertheless, morphology, lithology, and color mineralization allow to compare the old specimens with a few ones with labels, allowing to discuss what would be the origin of these collections, as well as assessing what happened with the demise of the localities from where these fossils were collected long ago.

Full text

HISTORIA NATURAL
Tercera Serie Volumen 13 (1) 2023/243-271
Luis Chirino-Gálvez 1,2, Omar Vicencio-Campos 1,3,4
y Leonardo Pérez-Barría 5,6
1Museo Seminario Valparaíso (MSV), Seminario San Rafael, Avenida Santa Elena 74, Valparaíso,
Chile. msv@ssr.cl; omar.vicencio@gmail.com
2Escuela de Ingeniería y Negocios, Universidad Viña del Mar. Viña del Mar, Chile.
3Museo Regional de Atacama, Atacama 98, Copiapó, Chile.
4Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de Valparaíso, Valparaíso, Chile.
5Museo Regional de Aysén, km 3 Coyhaique, Aysén, Chile
6Instituto de Ciencias Marinas y Limnológicas, Universidad Austral de Chile, Valdivia, Chile.
WHEN LOCALITIES ARE LOST: SCIENTISTS,
COLLECTIONS AND THE CHILEAN FOSSIL
WOOD HISTORY AT VALPARAISO
Cuando las localidades se pierden: Cientícos, Colecciones y la historia
de la madera fósil chilena en Valparaíso
243
Número dedicado a la Historia de las Ciencias Naturales

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CHIRINO-GÁLVEZ L. ; VICENCIO-CAMPOS O. Y PÉREZ-BARRÍA L.
Abstract. Historical fossil localities are frequently lost because, among other factors, the outcrops
have been actively mined or erased by urban development. It would be what happened with
historical fossil localities from the old Valparaiso province, in which naturalists, such as C. Darwin,
J. Dana, R. Philippi and J. Brüggen collected fossil specimens. Based on the historical evolution
of underreported fossil wood localities and local historical collection records, we report on the
fossil localities of Valparaíso, Placilla-Curauma and Algarrobo. Historically, most of the early
collections were sent overseas and their nal destination is mostly unknown. In addition, most
historical collections deposited in local museums have lost their labels, limiting the information of
the specimens. Nevertheless, morphology, lithology, and color mineralization allow to compare the
old specimens with a few ones with labels, allowing to discuss what would be the origin of these
collections, as well as assessing what happened with the demise of the localities from where these
fossils were collected long ago.
Keywords. Fossil wood, fossil localities, Valparaíso, Placilla-Curauma, Algarrobo.
Resumen. Localidades fósiles históricas suelen perderse debido a que los aoramientos conocidos
han sido minados o eliminados por urbanización. Esto último, cuando la ciudad se expande y
la urbanización cubre los sitios, sería lo ocurrido con localidades fósiles históricas de la antigua
provincia de Valparaíso reportadas por colectores como C. Darwin, J. Dana, R. Philippi y J. Brüggen.
Un ejemplo con lo ocurrido con la desaparición de localidades históricas con madera fósiles y las
colecciones históricas de Valparaíso, Placilla-Curauma y Algarrobo es informado aquí. La mayoría
de las primeras colecciones históricas fueron exportadas del país y su depósito nal es en su mayor
parte desconocido. La mayoría de las colecciones históricas encontradas en los museos locales no
están etiquetadas con información que permita descifrar las localidades de donde fueron colectados.
Sin embargo, litología, mineralización y color permitiría comparar de cierta forma con los pocos
especímenes que, si tienen información ligada, sobre cuál se podría denir el origen de estas
colecciones evaluando también que pasó con la pérdida de las localidades de donde estos fósiles
fueron colectados hace largo tiempo.
Palabras claves. Madera fósil, Localidades paleontológicas, Valparaíso, Placilla-Curauma,
Algarrobo.

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INTRODUCTION
Fossil wood or petried wood comes
from the Greek root Petro, meaning "rock"
or "stone" that literally means wood turned
into stone. It denes a special type of fos-
silized remains of terrestrial vegetation.
Literally, it is what is left of a tree having
turned completely into stone by the pro-
cess of permineralization. In such a case, all
the organic materials have been replaced
with minerals (most often a silicate, such
as quar), while retaining the original
structure of the wood. Unlike other types
of fossils which are typically impressions
or compressions, petried wood is one of
the few that keeps a three dimensional rep-
resentation of the original organic material,
where the invasion of minerals into cavities
between and within cells of natural wood,
usually by silica (silicon dioxide, SiO2) or
calcite (calcium carbonate, CaCO3) preserve
them as fossil structure.
The earlier denition used to consider fos-
sil wood or petried wood mixed with folk
tales or misconceptions, such as those ideas
proposed in the XVII century by Fabio Col-
onna who considered “fossil wood and am-
monites were mere clay, altered into such forms
by sulphureous waters and subterranean heat”
(Lyell, 1830).
Fossil wood was already properly de-
ned around the middle of the XIX century
by mineralogists as “Silicied wood. Petried
wood often consists of quar. Some specimens,
petried with chalcedony or agate, are remark-
ably beautiful when sawn across and polished,
retaining all the texture or grain as perfect as the
original wood” (Dana, 1865: 138). Nowadays,
fossil wood is understood as a fossil where
the original organic material has been re-
placed, usually by chalcedony or agate
(cryptocrystalline quar), but sometimes
by opal, coal, pyrite, calcite, apatite and oth-
ers, and where the colors, usually red and
green, are caused by iron, but a few of the
more brightly colored green woods may be
colored by chromium or vanadium (Mus-
toe, 2023).
The earlier technical stepping stones
The discovery of fossil wood started to be
recorded at least since classical antiquity,
when in the West, Pliny described them
around 77 AD in his book XXXVI on miner-
als of his Naturalis Historiae. In this book, he
described many minerals including a cou-
ple that can be interpreted as fossil wood
within two categories, as carbonized wood
associated with coal (Plinius, XXXVI: 73), or
as a silicied rock (Plinius XXXVI: 53.10). In
the East, Chinese scholars as early as the IX
century AD had described petried wood
and around 1080 AD Shen Kua described a
fossil bamboo citing it as evidence of change
of climate (Abrion and Winley, 1989: 572).
Fossil wood began to be studied as a sub-
ject of study by itself when Robert Hooke
started to observe fossil wood structures
using a primitive microscope for the rst
time in 1665, comparing it with cork cells
(tracheids), noticing striking similarities be-
tween petried and living wood (Figure 1).
According to Hooke, other substances
besides wood were altered by petrica-
tion, and that these objects were, as wood,
once living things. The numbers and vari-
ety of these other petrications were many
and included representatives from both the
animal and vegetable kingdoms (Hooke,
1665). Over one hundred sixty years later,
in 1831, is when H. Witham made the rst
anatomical study of petried plants (Fleet,
1911: 324). The same year, William Nicol of
Edimburgh published the rst formal ac-
count of this technique, “whereby sections of
fossil wood could be cut, mounted on glass, and
reduced to such a degree of transparency as to be
easily examined under a microscope” (Geikie,
1911: 647). That was the earlier beginning

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CHIRINO-GÁLVEZ L. ; VICENCIO-CAMPOS O. Y PÉREZ-BARRÍA L.
of the petrological technique, so basic for
any mineralogical analysis. This technique
requires some technical equipment, time
and eort to dene minerals and silicied
fossil woods, making thin sections glued
with Canada balsam as H. Nicol described
cuing standard transverse and longitudi-
nal cuts (Nicol, 1834). A standard procedure
that still make harder to work petrological
cuts to be able the study anatomical features
of fossil wood. Despite the technical di-
culties, this methodology started to be wide-
ly used to learn about fossil wood anatomy
and determining characters to dene fossil
tree taxonomy. In this earlier endeavour,
Robert Brown, keeper of the Botany Depart-
ment at the British Museum (Natural Histo-
ry), started sectioning fossil plants samples
just arrived from the Beagle expedition col-
lection between 1836 to 1837 (Falcon-Lang,
2015). Some of these surviving slides, such
as a dark conifer wood sample, came from
Tertiary beds the island of Chiloé (Figure 2).
It would be the earliest petrographic thin
section ever made on a Chilean specimen.
These slides are found in the collections of
the British Geological Survey, Keyworth,
with some more slides from this collection
and the specimens themselves found in the
Department of Paleontology, Natural His-
tory Museum, London (Van Wyhe, 2011).
Historically, most petried wood collec-
tions found at museums and the general
use of fossil wood as an ornamental stone
started in the XIX century, when large
quantities of Triassic petried wood from
the Arizona fossil forest discovered in 1850
started to be sold in the market from 1870
onwards (Price, 2008). Around 1870, im-
portant taxonomic works were underway
exemplied by studies such as the descrip-
tion of 136 fossil plants found in fossil for-
Figure 1 - View of cork cells (left) with fossil wood (right) in a microscope (modied from Hooke, 1665).

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SCIENTISTS, COLLECTIONS AND THE FOSSIL WOOD AT VALPARAISO
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ests from Spibergen described in a series
of seven monographs on these paleooras
(Heer, 1868; Chaney and Arnold, 1970), and
the discovery of large fossil forests at 82º lat.
North (Geikie, 1879).
As it was already understood in middle
XIX century, in order to work identifying
fossil woods it was required to make thin
sections. At the time, the collection of these
specimens was more focused on its lapidary
and ornamental value than seing a scien-
tic goal in mind. When scientic work was
the main goal, thin sections were obtained
by cuing the fossil in two, grinding the cut
surface smooth and examining it, or fasten-
ing it rmly to a glass slide, and making a
second cut close to the slide, thus geing a
thin section which was then ground as thin
as possible. Then, the preparation of fossil
thin sections was not only a tedious pro-
cess, but also one that was much wasteful
of the material. Around 1930s, a far more
ecient method was developed where
etching the at surface with acid to get a
regrounded peeled surface, resulting in a
process where lile material was wasted
(Field and Whelden, 1937). Therefore, with
the older method, it was very dicult to do
such work in countries like Chile as it was
commented by Philippi (1887), who based
on his experience studying Vesubian volca-
nic rocks in 1840s, he knew already how to
make petrographic thin sections he gured
in some of his later work in Chile (Philippi,
1877: 325).
Therefore, the petrographic thin section
techniques were widely known around the
middle of the XIX century, but recently in-
dependent countries such as Chile, where
science and engineering were doing their
rst footsteps, this advancement lagged
behind. It was only years after the founda-
tion of the National Museum (1830), the
rst mineralogy cathedra and mine school
(1838), normal teaching schools (1842) and
the University of Chile (1842), that petro-
graphic thin sections would be made lo-
cally with petried wood samples. At the
time, very few people were learned enough
and had the time, suitable microscopes as
well as were able to cover the expense that
meant the work with thin sections. Most
likely, several aempts were made before
1893, when Roberto Pohlmann, a German
professional petrographer, who besides
petrographic works, he had published
also some botany papers, started to work
petrographic studies making his own pe-
trographic thin sections (Pohlmann, 1893;
Fuenzalida, 1961; Pohlmann and Reiche,
1900). Then, we could deduce that most
of XIX century petried wood collections
found in Chile did not have local thin sec-
tions to determine taxonomy. Therefore,
these collections would not have been stud-
Figure 2 - Beagle´s expedition Tertiary conifer wood
thin section (PF7455) from Chiloé obtained by R. Brown
(Falcon-Lang, 2015).

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CHIRINO-GÁLVEZ L. ; VICENCIO-CAMPOS O. Y PÉREZ-BARRÍA L.
ied further until just forty years ago, when
Teresa Torres started to review and study
them with new thin sections from localities
from continental Chile and the Antarctic
Peninsula (Torres, 1983).
METHODOLOGY
In order to study historical collections
containing petried wood samples from
the old Valparaíso province, it has been pro-
posed to review the available collections. It
requires an historiographic approach track-
ing down all kind of information that could
be linked to the specimens such as records,
labels, cartography, collector´s journals, let-
ters, etc. that were reported as coming from
Valparaiso over a century ago. Another in-
tended pathway to follow is to compare the
features of the specimens themselves with
those of specimens we could study that
count with aached geographical data that
may be checked visiting the localities cited.
RESULTS
The earlier explorations
The earlier scientist explorers in Chile
were naturalist collectors who gathered all
kinds of natural history items, especially
those that were most aractive to be sent
or sold to European museums. This fact
made that fossil wood was not counted or
described like other items in the earlier pub-
lished reviews, and only a few expeditions
like those sponsored by the state such as
the “Wilkes US Exploring Expedition”, the
British “Beagle`s expedition” or “Heuland´s
Spanish” mineralogical expedition to Chile
and Perú had a wider scope allowing
them to collect more items, including fos-
sil wood. Almost the same could apply to
two French naturalists, Alcides D´Orbigny
(1802-1857) and Claudio Gay (1800-1873).
Alcides D´Orbigny, one of the founders of
the micropaleontology, was exploring South
America following a Humboldtian voyag-
ing model, so he was briey in Chile, and
during his stay he collected in the Quiriqui-
na Formation outcrops around Concepción,
and while in Valparaíso in 1833, he reported
to have goen a large piece of fossil wood
from a French whaler in the bay, who had
collected it on the shore o Mocha island
(most likely Tirúa) in the southern part of
the Arauco peninsula (D´Orbigny, 1842: 90).
D´Orbigny met Claudio Gay in Chile, who
since 1830 was collecting specimens in the
country and will continue collecting during
twelve years thanks to a contract with the
Chilean government. This also required to
prepare collections for natural history cabi-
nets/museums, as well as write a report
summarizing the natural history of Chile,
and editing an encyclopedic report that it
would be turned out to be published in 28
volumes and 2 atlas dealing with the natu-
ral history, physical and political history of
Chile from 1846 to 1871. Two of the most fa-
mous French naturalists of this epoch, Louis
Hippolyte Hupé and Paul Gervais described
the fossil species collected by Claudio Gay
(Mollusca and vertebrates, respectively),
and even though Claudio Gay himself was
a respected botanist, there was no citation to
fossil plants or petried woods in that ear-
lier work (Gay, 1854). Most of the Chilean
collected specimens (minerals, fossils, and
seeds) taken by Gay to France, were studied
by specialist scientists such as Hupé, and
were later given to the Natural History Mu-
seum at Paris (Sagredo, 2007).
People and petrified woods in Chilean history
The story of how fossil wood began to
be recognized and collected in the country
started with some scientic expeditions,

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where a few researchers reported their oc-
currence without geolocating the localities
where these fossils were collected. Then,
there were resident scientists such as Igna-
cio Domeyko and Rudolf A. Philippi who
collected specimens during their eldtrips
in the country, leaving these samples in
university collections and the National Mu-
seum at Santiago.
In this summarized review dealing with
historical collections of fossil woods found
in central Chile and shipped from Valpara-
iso, we should consider expeditions such as
the Spanish mineralogical expedition by the
Heuland brothers, who visited Chile around
1795-96, the Beagle expedition between
1833-35, and the U.S. scientic expedition
in 1838-1839. In addition, a few remarks are
needed on the people who collected and
wrote the earlier reports from these expedi-
tions on these fossils: Conrad and Christian
Heuland, Charles Darwin, and James Dana.
Heuland. The rst Chilean collection cur-
rently found in a museum was made by
the Royal mineralogical expedition to Chile
and Perú lead by the brothers, Conrad and
Christian Heuland, German mineralogists,
who had studied at the famous Freiberg
School of Mines. They were commissioned
by the Spanish crown, “to collect mineralogical
samples and marine shells, crystallizations and
fossils, plus to write the physical-mineralogical
history of the visited kingdoms” (Arias, 1978).
The brothers travelled collecting minerals
through Chile from North to South from July
of 1795 to June of 1796 (Cubas and Oyarzún,
1987). This expedition stayed some addi-
tional months in the country labeling, pack-
ing and preparing the shipping to Spain of
these labeled samples that included some
fossils. Since, no eld catalogue was made to
go along the shipped boxes, careful labeling
instructions were detailed in a leer wrien
in Santiago on December 26th 1796 sent to
the director of the Museum at Madrid, Jo-
seph de Clavijo (Figure 3).
The Heuland brothers collected the
rst fossils ever recorded in Chile includ-
ing some samples of fossil wood without
locality plus some other specimen from
Nacimiento, Bío Bío region, that are found
currently in the collections at the National
Museum of Natural Sciences at Madrid
(Montero and Diéguez, 1998).
Darwin. Three decades later, during the
South American Beagle´s Surveying expe-
dition in Chile (1834-35), the naturalist on
board, Charles Darwin was a young Eng-
lish naturalist scientist in the making (Fig-
ure 4), who stayed based at Valparaiso for
eight months, lodged with his friend and
former classmate Richard Coreld, who
was a merchant in town. Here, he orga-
nized eldtrips, collecting and interacting
with the local English merchant commu-
Figure 3 - Letter from Christian Heuland to J. Clavijo
with labeling remarks (Archivo CSIC).

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CHIRINO-GÁLVEZ L. ; VICENCIO-CAMPOS O. Y PÉREZ-BARRÍA L.
nity. Darwin wrote that he had “been struck
by the great superiority in the English resi-
dents over other towns in S. America. Already
I have met who have read works on geology &
other branches of science” (Darwin, 1988).
He was quite surprised and pleasant to be
asked his thoughts of the just recently pub-
lished Lyell´s Geology. A very important
rst textbook of Geology in three volumes,
where Darwin learn much about Geology
and whose third volume fresh o from the
press was received by Darwin when he ar-
rived to Valparaiso.
Darwin had some local collaboration from
some of these English speaking merchants
like R. Alison who used to do some nature
eldtrips around and provided Darwin
with samples and outcrops descriptions (in
Van Wyhe, 2011), that were complementary
to those wrien by Darwin in his journal de-
scribing outcrops like those at Playa Ancha:
“A few days ago I went along the Coast from
Playa-ancha towards Laguna, and in a ravine
nearly parallel with that of Quebrada Verde and
about 300 yards from the sea, I observed that it
had intersected several strata of shells leaving
them exposed to the right and left on both sides
of the ravine, on one side they continued up a se-
ries of steps or beaches forming a lile hill about
80 feet high from the brink of the ravine, and
about 350 feet above the level of the sea—The face
of the hill was much covered with brush-wood, so
that it was only by pulling it up and removing
the earth that the shells could be found, and the
steps were not well dened— The boom of the
ravine and the loose stones in it were gneiss of a
very compact character with veins of feltspar; on
digging a hole into one of the sides of the ravine
about 3 feet from the edge I found the pelvis of
some quadruped in a state of great decay. it was
too small for a horse. I brt it in to show you the
state of the bone but I do not think it worth send-
ing you— The shells were the large concholepus,
patella of various sizes some too small for the pur-
poses of food, some turbos, and the metillus in a
broken state, but I was not able to nd some of
the small concholepus.— I have sent you some for
your inspection—“
At the same time, Allison described in one
of his two known leers to Darwin about the
local geology around Valparaíso. In one of
these leers explained that: “The piece of fossil
wood you allude to, and which I send was found
in a ravine beyond Playa-ancha towards Quebra-
da Verde, but I did not nd it in situ, but in the
water amongst the rocks. The sides of the ravine
were a sandy conglomerate with rounded pieces
of indurated clay similar to those in the road of
the Alto del Puerto. The boom of the ravine ap-
peared a sort of grünsteinic rock”.
Records for this kind of fossils were kept
by Darwin within a summary petried
wood entry in his locality notebook, where
he identied the following localities: near
Iquique (1), Copiapó (2), costa de Valparaiso
(3), Cordillera de Aconcagua (4), Concep-
ción (5) and north of Chiloé (6). Localities
where he collected fossil wood in 1834-35
(Figure 5).
Dana. James Dana was perhaps the fore-
most American mineralogist from the XIX
century, who before 1868, had published
the description of 28 new minerals, and he
was also even a more famous professor and
since 1848 writer of his Manual of Mineralogy
as well as his treatise, that through many
Figure 4 - Don Carlos as he was called in Chile and South
America in 1840 (watercolor by George Simmond).

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editions made his name as synonymous to
Mineralogy, an later on his legacy that has
been preserved with new revised editions
(24th) to our day. Therefore, his Manual was
used by whoever wanted to study minerals
in the second part of the XIX century (Figure
6). Ten years before, he was a young natu-
ralist eagerly collecting minerals and inver-
tebrates in the surroundings of Valparaíso,
including a few fossils such as fossil wood
samples.
James Dana, as a naturalist, was member
of the Gillis U.S. scientic expedition, who
described invertebrates and rocks collected
by him at Valparaiso in 1838. Among the
samples collected, he tells the story about
the nding of some fossil wood around Val-
paraiso.
“The silicied wood of the Andes is said to oc-
cur in a similar conglomerate; but whether it be-
longs to a single epoch, or as is more probable,
to dierent periods, has not been satisfactorily
determined. It occurs in the form of agate, jasper
and hornstone, and generally retains well the tex-
ture of the original wood”. ‘The external surface
is often bleached by exposure, and sometimes in
this way is made to resemble bark. One specimen
obtained had been bored by some insect or worm
before it was petried. About two miles from the
Post House, eight miles east of Valparaiso, there
are numerous fragments of silicied wood, and
among them part of a trunk of a tree, two feet in
diameter and fteen inches long. From their posi-
tion, it was evident that they had been transport-
ed to their present place since they were silicied.
A single specimen of similar fossil wood was met
with on the hills just south of the Concon, twen-
ty-ve miles north of Valparaiso” (Dana, 1849:
584). This description could be correlated
with historical and recent fossil wood found
around Placilla; a suburb town located 12
km to the SE of the location mentioned by
Dana for Valparaíso. Even though, this dis-
tance would match the distance calculated
Figure 5 - Darwin´s fossil wood localities notebook page naming Chilean localities (from Darwin Online).

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CHIRINO-GÁLVEZ L. ; VICENCIO-CAMPOS O. Y PÉREZ-BARRÍA L.
in miles by Dana, his orientation is to the SE.
If we take as eastern strike, the historical
location of this fossil wood should be lo-
cated in the higher ground of Reñaca Alto
and Quilpué, a current suburb location
around Viña del Mar.
Chilean Historical Collections by
Domeyko, Philippi, and Brüggen
Ignacio Domeyko, Rodulfo (Rudolf)
Philippi and Juan (Johannes) Brüggen,
were well known European scientists
who seled in Chile, a country where
they taught science (mineralogy, geology
and natural history) to many student gen-
erations at the Instituto Nacional and/or
University of Chile leaving many records
and publications on collecting fossils that
include petried wood that haven´t been
reviewed until now. Their combined input
is very important in the history and evo-
lution of Chilean geology, so it requires
some paragraphs historically arranged to
tell who they were and what happened to
their accounts and fossil collections.
The rst to sele in Chile was Ignacio
Domeyko (1802-1889), who was a Polish/
Lithuanian emigré who became the rst
professor who taught mineralogy in Chile,
and also the most important researcher
describing the geology and mineralogy
of the country. Of the many minerals he
characterized, there are three names for
valid minerals he described, and two valid
minerals dedicated to him by other miner-
alogists (Cuadra, 2022). He collected min-
Figure 6 - James Dana and his Manual as it is found at the MSV (Dana, 1865).

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253
erals and fossils in eld trips through the
country since 1838. These minerals were
described in his Mineralogy treatise and
manuals, including there also, the occur-
rence of fossil wood (Figure 7).
Some of these fossil wood samples were
mineralogically described by Domeyko as
lignites, coppery galena, chalcedony, and
as fossil cork, whose features are listed be-
low:
Galena in fossil wood found in a copper
mine in Catemu: “504……Galena cobriza…
galena intercalada entre las bras de madera
en parte silicífera, en parte carbonizada pen-
etrada de minerales de cobre en la mina llama-
da Manto de Lilen en Catemo (Aconcagua)”
(Domeyko, 1879: 324).
Chalcedony in the Atacama desert is
characterized in Spanish as found in “En
masas pequeñas irregulares, globosa, arri-
ñonada, estalactítica: veces forma la masa de
algunos restos animales de madera petrica-
da”.
Soft Hydroscopic fossil cork found in
many localities is described in Spanish as
“Corcho fósil.—Mui blando, dócil casi como el
corcho. Estructura brosa entretejida: apénas se
pega la lengua; mui liviano. Ps. 0,68 0,99; pero
absorbe agua. Tanto el asbesto como el corcho
se han hallado en muchas localidades en Chile
como en el Perú.” (Domeyko, 1879: 594).
Some lignites, if the surface is brous
it could be considered as fossil wood de-
scribed in the original Spanish as “brosa,
puede pasar insensiblemente madera fósil, cu-
ando por su color, cierta dureza la dureza la
conservación completa de su contextura brosa
aun de la forma de troncos, se parece más bien
la madera que al carbón” (Domeyko, 1879:
670).
Figure 7 - Ignacio Domeyko and his Mineralojia (Domeyko, 1879).

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CHIRINO-GÁLVEZ L. ; VICENCIO-CAMPOS O. Y PÉREZ-BARRÍA L.
Even though Domeyko was describing
minerals, he characterized some fossil
wood samples he found in the Atacama
Desert, around Copiapó (Atacama), Cate-
mu (Valparaíso), and partially carbonized,
and partially petried woods found from
Cartagena and Topocalma, to the Ma-
gallanes Straits (Domeyko, 1879: 672).
Rudolf Amandus Philippi (1808-1904)
was a Prussian naturalist, who arrived to
Chile in 1851 escaping from the European
1848 revolutions. He was the director of
the National Museum from 1853 onwards,
and also he was professor at the Instituto
Nacional and University of Chile (Figure
8A). Through many years he was in charge
of the National Museum, he collected of
kinds of Natural history specimens min-
erals (Verdejo et al., 2018), and more than
eight hundred new fossil species (Pérez-
Barria et al., 2018). These fossils were
mainly described in his two monographs
(Philippi, 1887, 1899), where he summa-
rized the occurrence of fossil woods at dif-
ferent locations in the country.
Johannes Brüggen (1887-1953) was a
German geologist who arrived to Chile
in 1911 to work as Engineer at the Public
Work Ministry (Figure 8B). From 1917 on-
wards, he was professor of mineralogy, ge-
ology and later, founder of the Geological
Institute at the University of Chile. He is
considered to be the father of the Chilean
geology (Charrier et al., 2016). He collected
many fossils through his 40 years long geo-
logical experience in Chile, summarizing
their stratigraphic occurrence in his book
“Fundamentals of the Geology of Chile” (1950),
Figure 8 - The Chilean German collectors R. A. Philippi. A,(Fundación R.A. Philippi) and J. Brüggen. B, (Charrier et
al., 2016) when both were young age.

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255
where he updated his view at the time on
many localities including the Algarrobo
fossiliferous locality.
Paleontological historical background
in Valparaíso province
Valparaiso used to be the port of entry for
geoscientists to Chile, so naturally, the rst
descriptions of the surrounding geology
were made by them in this area. Therefore,
the rst sketches of a formal description of
one local sedimentary fossiliferous forma-
tion was done by Charles Darwin in 1835,
when he characterized the Navidad For-
mation, an important fossiliferous marine
Neogene sequence where he found 31 spe-
cies of marine invertebrates with a “sand-
stone contain(ing) fragments of wood, either
in the state of lignite or partially silicied”
(Darwin, 1846).
Closer to town, Valparaiso started to
be named as a fossil locality around the
time of Beagle`s Expedition visit, when
Darwin tells about doing some geology
around this city port in 1835. Among the
fossils reported so early on, there were
fossil wood specimens (Darwin, 1835;
Dana, 1849), also found in the surround-
ing area in Placilla/Curauma, and Algar-
robo (Philippi, 1887). Not much of this
area was mapped showing its geology un-
til the XX century, so all these areas where
fossils were found had been mostly con-
sidered in the literature for a while as un-
dierentiated sedimentary tertiary beds
with fossiliferous outcrops recognized at
Algarrobo and Lo Abarca (Figure 9).
Later on, when the local stratigraphy
was mapped, most of these outcrops were
recognized as part of the Navidad Forma-
tion, considered to be the main source for
marine fossils as well as fossil wood (Dar-
win, 1846), spreading its beds from south
of Valparaíso to Topocalma (Pissis, 1854).
The lost fossil Localities
around Valparaiso
The fossil localities from where these re-
corded fossils were found are not precisely
ploed in a map. Most of them were only
named as Valparaíso, and that could mean
sometimes the hamlets of Placilla/Curau-
Figure 9 - Geologic sketch for Valparaiso area showing
tertiary fossiliferous beds (modied from Brüggen,
1950).
Figure 10 - Geographical coordinates for main Valparai-
so Localities (Pissis, 1854).

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CHIRINO-GÁLVEZ L. ; VICENCIO-CAMPOS O. Y PÉREZ-BARRÍA L.
ma and Algarrobo as well, whose inhab-
ited hamlets where part of some large ha-
cienda. Therefore, in order to nd the old
locations with geographic coordinates, it
should be located using surveying records
from the XIX century (Figure 10) like those
mapped and ploed by Pissis (1854).
Checking, ocial sources like the Cen-
sus made every 10 years plus the available
cartography, we could assess the growing
urban development that occurred in Val-
paraiso in the XIX century, where neigh-
boring localities such as Placilla and Algar-
robo at the time where just lile hamlets (see
Table 1).
Valparaíso. After the independence in 1818,
this city port grew demographically fast dur-
ing most of the XIX century covering with
buildings any available atland (El Plan)
around 1838 (Figure 11) and starting to build
Figure 11 - Valparaiso, a little town when was visited by Darwin and Dana (Tessan, 1838).
1831 1854 1865 1875 1885 1895
Valparaíso 24000 52600 70438 97737 104952 121600
Placilla posada 320
Algarrobo Puerto menor 101
Table 1 - Urban demographic evolution between 1831-1895 (Source: Bodini, 1985; Espinoza, 1903).

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257
houses on the hills a few years later reaching
a built surface area of 800 Ha around 1900s
(Risopatrón, 1924). A more recent assess-
ment of the built urban area of the city adds
over 3000 Ha (CONAF-CONAMA, 1999).
Therefore, the historical urban develop-
ment of Valparaiso has obliterated any
suitable sedimentary outcrops recorded
by Darwin (1834-5), Alison (in Darwin,
1835) and Dana (1838) in the higher ground
around Playa Ancha covering any outcrops
in the area (Gana et al., 1996). Most that it
was left today is found on the slopes cuts
around the old road to Santiago on La Vir-
gen Hill (Campos, 2017) and Ramaditas
Hill (Grimme and Alvarez, 1964), where
cuts still are visible on some slopes on the
hill (Figure 12).
Placilla/Curauma. Placilla de Peñuelas was
a small hamlet during the XIX century, get-
ting some importance as a water reservoir
Figure 12 - Valparaíso´s panoramic view evolution looking above sedimentary outcrops cuts 1860 and 2023
(Charton de Treville, 1860).

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258
CHIRINO-GÁLVEZ L. ; VICENCIO-CAMPOS O. Y PÉREZ-BARRÍA L.
Figure 13 - Placilla/Curauma urban evolution (IGM, 1908-Google Earth, 2023).

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259
for the growing population of the city of
Valparaíso. The rst steps on that regard be-
gin in 1869, when “Las Cenizas” reservoir is
built in the old 60 Ha “Fundo Las Cenizas”,
and later when between 1895 and 1900, the
larger Peñuelas reservoir was built. Later,
this reservoir would become the “Lago Pe-
ñuelas” reserve (in 1952). In addition to Las
Cenizas and Peñuelas reservoirs, Laguna
Curauma, known also as Tranque La Luz is
a third reservoir. All of them adds up 1309
Ha (CONAF-CONAMA, 1999) of former
land with outcrops along with additional
11000 Ha of more recent pines, and euca-
lyptus plantations (CONAF-CONAMA,
1999) plus the recent surrounding indus-
trial development that have covered most or
all of the older outcrops from where Darwin
and Philippi reported fossil wood.
At the beginning of the XX century, Placil-
la was still a small hamlet with 320 inhabit-
ants dispersed on 2 km on both sides of the
Valparaiso road (Espinoza, 1903), that only
in the last 30 years has been growing fast
to reach 39344 inhabitants (INE, 2017) in an
area of 1377 Ha obliterating any historical
outcrops by urban development (Figure
13).
Placilla de Peñuelas was until 1864 a
large farm (“hacienda”) and stage coach sta-
tion (“posada”) visited by Darwin on his
way to Santiago in March of 1835, and not
much had changed when it was visited by
Philippi around 1870. The place where both
naturalists, collected and reported petried
wood. Darwin collected in Placilla “petried
wood in a conglomerate” (sample Beagle 2155
at Sedgwick Museum) during a stagecoach
stopover at the Placilla´s “posada”, located
along the old royal road to Santiago. Ac-
cording to old maps and coordinates, the
original location where these fossils were
collected should be found on the northern
side of the town alongside the “camino vie-
jo”, when only the “posada” and a few iso-
lated houses were on the place. Conversely,
Placilla de Peñuelas today, is a large subur-
ban area of Valparaíso with nearly 40000 in-
habitants, spreading over 1727 Ha of the old
farmland, that also includes an area south-
wards known as Curauma located 8 km
south of Valparaíso, that was another large
farm (“Fundo”) centered on the Curauma
Creek, where there was a “lagoon” draining
a creek coming from Placilla with tertiary
outcrops (Philippi, 1887:10).
Algarrobo. This locality started to be o-
cially recorded as “puerto menor” in 1854,
and as a subdelegation (village) aached
to Lagunillas (Casablanca) in 1891. In 1920s
still was considered as one street hamlet
(Caserío) (Risopatrón, 1924). Algarrobo was
also known because of the nding of marine
reptile remains plus many invertebrates
since 1860s. Philippi described some of
these fossils in 1887 in his monography on
Tertiary fossils commenting on nding out-
crops bordering the sea shore on 4 to 5 km
and 40 feet wide (Philippi, 1887: 10). Later
in 1915, Brüggen mapped the area distin-
guishing two beds (Figure 14), an underly-
ing Cretaceous bed and another Eocene bed
on top divided by an unconformity seen on
the coastal outcrops above a beach area.
Brüggen found Cretaceous fossil beds o
a small creek that descends 500 m east from
the now nonexistent main outcrop found
at the larger Municipalidad creek, where
he found marine invertebrates noticing as
most frequent fossils Cardium acuticostaum
D´Orbigny, Trigonia hanetiana D´Orbigny
and Mactra colossea Philippi associated with
“pieces of carbonized wood that are not rare”
(Brüggen, 1915).
Therefore, those inland outcrops disap-
peared with the XX century urbanization of
Algarrobo. Since the creation of a subdelega-
tion (village) dependent from Lagunillas in
1891 when the population was around 100
(Espinoza, 1903), becoming a municipal-
ity after 1945 with a steady demographic

HISTORIA NATURAL Tercera Serie Volumen 13 (1) 2023/243-271
260
CHIRINO-GÁLVEZ L. ; VICENCIO-CAMPOS O. Y PÉREZ-BARRÍA L.
Figure 14 - Algarrobo geological map evolution (modied from Brûggen, 1915; Wall et al., 1996).

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261
growth that had reached an ocial gure
of 13817 (INE, 2017).
On the other hand, recent changes have
occurred because the coast around Algar-
robo have been aected by more extreme
stormy events since 2015 (Figure 15), with
recurrent swells that have increased be-
tween 10% and 25% compared to previ-
ous years, causing the interruption of the
annual dynamic process of the beaches
accentuated by anthropic interventions
that promote coastal degradation (Briceño
et al., 2021). This dynamics has been char-
acterized assessing 6 local sedimentologi-
cal proles on a 4 km beach shore on the
northern part of this bay (<1.5 km from
outcropping fossils) measuring which
part of the beaches and at what time of
year there is a higher risk of severe erosion
in the immediate areas (Briceño et al., 2021;
Briceño, 2022). Therefore, with the erosion
increase, new outcrops belonging to the
same beds are reappearing on the seashore.
Figure 15 - Current
outcrops with
fossil wood at the
shore and former
outcrops covered
by urbanization at
Algarrobo (Google
Earth).

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CHIRINO-GÁLVEZ L. ; VICENCIO-CAMPOS O. Y PÉREZ-BARRÍA L.
In addition, we have to count the uplift
associated with several large earthquakes
such as those in 1730, 1822, 1906, and 1985
yielding an apparently regular return peri-
od of 82 +/- 6 years, which is highly unusu-
al for large subduction zone earthquakes.
The rupture zones for the 1822, 1906, and
1985 earthquakes overlap in the vicinity of
Valparaíso, where the Nazca plate slips be-
neath the continental crust of South Amer-
ica by as much as 2 meters along a rupture
measuring hundreds of square kilometers
(Thorson, 1999). Abrupt coseismic uplifts
also occurred during these large earth-
quakes. The 1822 earthquake, considered
historically the strongest, produced nearly
a meter of coseismic uplift at Valparaíso
and surrounding region. This was wit-
nessed at the time by Mary Graham and
published as a report in the Transactions
of the Geological Society (1824), noting the
large uplift of the seashore around Val-
paraíso (Kölbl-Ebert, 1999). Evidently, ev-
ery time this uplift has occurred the coastal
outcrops are exposed and eroded. For the
Algarrobo area, a geological study calcu-
lated a local uplift rate of approximately
0.4 m/ky (Encinas et al., 2006). Therefore,
new outcrops not seen historically before
are being exposed and eroding now at the
edge of the sea, where increasing beach
erosion is also locally recorded (Briceño
et al., 2021, 2022). Then, even though the
original locality is already gone because
of urban development, the local uplift al-
lows that the same beds could be found
today again under an eroding 450 m beach
front at the edge of the sea in playa Los Tu-
bos (Algarrobo). For example, it has been
proved that uplifting associated to the 1985
Algarrobo earthquake was 20 cm (Comte
et al., 1986). Then, calculating average lo-
cal uplifting minus sea level rise balance
around the coast of Valparaíso. It shows
that the coast is presently rising relative to
the sea by at a rate less than 0.5 mm per
year (Thorson, 1999) also aested by a lo-
cal geological study estimate of 0.4 m/ky
(Encinas et al., 2006). Therefore, this uplift
increases the erosion rate on the coastal
fossiliferous outcrops at Algarrobo.
Museum collections
The original records associated with most
of the earlier expeditions and the collected
specimens do not recall later detailed where-
abouts of the specimens either in Britain or
the US. The US Wilkes expedition specimens
collected in 1838-39 were somewhere mis-
placed within the collections through trans-
fer to the Smithsonian Institution (founded
in 1852), where according to the Smithson-
ian Institution archives should be located
in boxes belonging the Janes Dana or in the
Chilean collection boxes sent by ambassador
Pollard to the US. The Beagle Expedition
specimens collected by Charles Darwin in
1834-35 should be at the Sedgwick Museum
of University of Cambridge. On the other
hand, it is a well known fact that local resi-
dent collectors such as Domeyko, Philippi
and Brüggen sent specimens not only to lo-
cal museums but through gifts, exchanges
or sale to many of the main European mu-
seums.
Besides the National Museum (Museo
Nacional de Historia Natural) at Santiago,
we have four local museums where fossil
wood specimens are in deposit: the Museo
de Historia Natural de Valparaiso (MHNV)
whose published catalogue counts fossil
plants but not petried wood (Fuentes,
2019; Campos, 2017), 57 fragments from
Museo Fonck (MF), 10 fragments from the
Museo Histórico de Placilla (MHPL), and
18 from the Museo del Seminario de Val-
paraíso (MSV) who have some fossil wood
collections (Figure 16) that have been taken
into account to discover their origin using an
historiographical approach.

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263
Proposing how to nd locations
with the fossil woods collected
As already stated, fossil wood collections
are often mislabeled or simply do not have a
locality label aached, since often the speci-
mens are collected ex situ without reference
to the outcrops from where the specimens
came from. Therefore, studying old col-
lections is a challenge because no relevant
information is associated with the speci-
men. The original organic material of the
fossil wood has been replaced, usually
by chalcedony or agate (cryptocrystalline
quar), but sometimes by opal, coal, py-
rite, calcite, apatite and others that may
be stained by traces with colors red and
green usually caused by iron, as it had
been recorded historically rst as a metal-
lic cation (Bahr, 1852; Leet, 1853), and as
oxides whose specic color may be associ-
ated with dierent metallic cations, usu-
ally from hydrothermal ores, where for
example, in countries such as Chile, it is
known that traditional artisanal miners
crushed in their mills greenish fossil wood
to get copper ore in areas such as around
Pichasca Natural Monument (Coquimbo
Region). Therefore, from the more typi-
cal reddish brown hematite tone colors to
a few of the more brightly colored green
woods that may be colored by chromium
or vanadium (Mustoe and Acosta, 2016),
there is a correlation between color, the
kind of oxide trace staining the fossil and
the outcrop from where it comes. Then,
these mineralogical characteristics may
be associated with the surrounded rocks
in order to dierentiate outcrops on the
ground to nd what is the most likely
source of the fossils.
Therefore, as in this case study, there
are not so many localities to study. Then,
fossil wood fragments on the suspected
sites could be useful to compare them us-
ing traces with suspected fossils from that
area in storage in museum collections,
studying the staining traces of minerals
that might be useful indicators to reduce the
number of possible localities or even iden-
Figure 16 - Local Fossil Wood fragments from Museo del Seminario de Valparaíso (A), Museo Fonck (B) and Museo
Placilla (C).

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CHIRINO-GÁLVEZ L. ; VICENCIO-CAMPOS O. Y PÉREZ-BARRÍA L.
tify the most likely locality that should be
associated with the specimens.
DISCUSSION
In the XIX century, fossil wood used to
be confused or being called for as such for
some kinds of brous lignite (Lyell, 1830;
DEHA, 1888: 916). As the petried wood
collecting used to be done mainly with a
lapidary or ornamental goal in mind, the
locality and stratigraphy was not impor-
tant in older collections. Then, there is a gap
with scientic data available in those col-
lections that might be helped to be resolved
with further studies using classic and more
recent methodologies such as SEM micros-
copy and X-ray diraction that have been
developed and applied to studies on fossil
wood since 1970s (Buurman, 1972).
There are many world examples where
land development and urban expansion
can have large impacts on geodiversity as
it has been observed by the danger of de-
struction of fossiliferous outcrops such as
examples given as by industrial and road
development in the Gingko Petried For-
est State Park at Washington State (Gray,
2004), or by the urbanization pressure at
Maadi petried forest that covered an large
area of thousands Ha, now being partially
decimated (40%) and accelerated its de-
struction by urbanization by New Cairo
(AbdelMaksoud and El Metwaly, 2020),
with a remaining 70 Ha being preserved as
a park surrounded by the growing Cairo
megalopolis in Egypt (Figure 17).
Another example that should be cited is
what happened to the fossil forest at “Agua
de la Zorra”, near Uspallata. A site dis-
covered by Darwin on his Andean cross-
ing back from Mendoza to Valparaiso in
1835. This place was the rst in situ fossil
forest discovered in South America (Brea
et al., 2009). According to Morton, the fos-
silized trees would have been removed to
museums, but some fossil tree stumps were
still visible along with a marker at the site
commemorating Darwin´s work (Morton,
1995).
Perhaps the famous Arizona petried
Figure 17 - Maadi Petried forest in danger in Cairo (2019).

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SCIENTISTS, COLLECTIONS AND THE FOSSIL WOOD AT VALPARAISO
265
forest discovered around 1850s, is the best
example on what happen when an area is
preserved as a national park (founded in
1962), and what have happened with out-
lying bordering areas where tons of fos-
sil wood are mined annually. This park is
visited by nearly nine hundred thousand
visitors every year, where some of these
visitors steal fossil wood fragments as sou-
venirs reaching up to 12 tons a year (McK-
innon, 2015).
On the other hand, the Chilean show-
case is not so well known or studied. Up
to 1980s, only twenty historical fossil wood
localities had been recorded and studied
in the continental Chilean territory (Tor-
res, 1983). The rst Chilean Natural Sanc-
tuary (protected natural site according to
law 17288) was missing from that earlier
list. It was declared in 1978 as "Punta Pel-
luco Fossil Forest" located a few kilometers
east of Puerto Mon (41.58º S, 72.98º W)
covering 4 Ha. There, the beach exposes
tree stumps in life position originally bur-
ied by a lahar (Klohn, 1976) exposed after
the world´s largest magnitude earthquake
ever registered uplifted the area (Valdivia-
Concepción in 1960). The site is severely
degraded by unregulated tourists visiting
the site, plus erosion associated with the
impact of waves and stones moving inside
the stumps (Figure 18), besides the inten-
sive bioactivity of a high diversity of algae
and invertebrate epibionts eroding the sur-
face (personal observation, LPB). The num-
ber of stumps and lost information is di-
cult to precise due to tides in the inundated
area. This forest has been dated in the mid-
late Pleistocene age (Roig et al., 2001).
Another missing locality from that ear-
lier list were some fossiliferous outcrops
known from the historical paleontological
site at Algarrobo beach (Philippi, 1887), a
place where abundant carbonaceous wood
fragments are found in Eocene beds and
a lile bit less underlying the Cretaceous
beds where they have been recorded (Tav-
era, 1980), as well as in other minor locali-
ties such as Topocalma, Idalgo and Quil-
pué, places where some fossil woods such
as Jubaea chilensis were recorded long ago
(Pissis, 1873; Reiche, 1934). Also missing
from that list are the older cited localities,
most likely because land development and
urban expansion has already obliterated
them as outcrops long ago.
None of the recorded localities by Torres
(1983) come from Valparaíso area. Recent
Figure 18 - Stump of ancient coniferous in the Natural Sanctuary “Fossil Forest of Punta Pelluco”. A, Erosive action
on the stump made by waves and stones. Arrows indicate the movement and ow of water. B, Intertidal area where
the stumps are outcropping.

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CHIRINO-GÁLVEZ L. ; VICENCIO-CAMPOS O. Y PÉREZ-BARRÍA L.
paleo/archaeological ndings along the
estero Quilpué (near Viña del Mar) record-
ed some fossil wood that has been dated
around 15000 years old (Rafael Labarca,
com. pers.). Therefore, that nding is too
recent to be correlated with earlier histori-
cal discoveries we report here.
On a smaller scale, the Chilean Pichasca
Natural Monument is a 120 Ha protected
site administered by CONAF (Chilean For-
est Service) since 1985 with near 100 arau-
caria stump fragments where an additional
three more species have been anatomically
recognized (Torres and Rallo, 1981) and
found outcropping alongside 1 km visitor
pathway. As Pichasca is a classical tourist
and geological eldtrip stopover, through
the years it has been observed that these
stumps are geing smaller and some of
them even disappearing.
The rediscovery of a historical petried
forest in "El Rosado" (Ortega Village in
the Chilean Patagonia), where three fossil
stands are outcropping in 13 Ha, reaching
an area of 102 Ha surveyed within 4275
Ha (source MMA Gob. Chile) in a locality
known by local colonists from the seven-
ties (only a few kilometers from where
Nishida's Japanese expedition found
Cretaceous Araucarioxylon; Nishida et al.,
1992). This is another example of loss of
critical geological information caused by
the illegal subtraction of pieces (Pérez-Bar-
ría, 2021). Only some of it ended up in the
local museum of Villa Ortega and the his-
torical collection of the Regional Museum
of Aysén (see Ortiz, 2022). Even though,
accessibility is limited, in recent years, "El
Rosado" (Figure 19) growing popularity
with visitors has increased the risk of dis-
appearing before minimal research is done
(Avendaño, 2022; Guajardo, 2022; Pérez-
Barría et al., 2022).
Examples from Chile and across the
world are a reminder about what has oc-
curred with fossiliferous outcrops even
when fossils are ocially protected by law
like in Chile (Law 17288), as equally may
have additional preservation issues because
they are very fragile to anthropic pres-
sure. For comparison, in this study around
Valparaiso´s localities, only Algarrobo still
have some fossils found bordering the tide
on the sea shore line with 1.03 Ha of coastal
outcrops covered partially by sand with
two main fossiliferous components from
Figure 19 - The Rosado site, Aysén Region. Camp of petried wood in natural condition (left), and relocated and
decontextualized trunks of the historical locality most affected by illegal extraction. Both are different localities
(modied from Pérez-Barría, 2021).

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SCIENTISTS, COLLECTIONS AND THE FOSSIL WOOD AT VALPARAISO
267
Figure 20 - Recent seashore evolution of fossiliferous outcrops at Algarrobo from 1960 to 2019 (modied
from Pablo Salinas, Algarrobo al Día).

HISTORIA NATURAL Tercera Serie Volumen 13 (1) 2023/243-271
268
CHIRINO-GÁLVEZ L. ; VICENCIO-CAMPOS O. Y PÉREZ-BARRÍA L.
Cretaceous and Eocene age where fossil
plants, invertebrates, birds, shes and rep-
tiles are recorded (Otero et al., 2023, 2012;
Otero and Suárez, 2022; Schweier et al.,
2009; Yuri et al., 2012). When considering
the paleodiversity found there and its high
scientic value of the fossils found, along
with raised erosion at the shore, which in-
creases degradation risk. Hence, this local-
ity should be considered as a priority site to
be protected.(Figure 20).
All of these elements count when assess-
ing that Algarrobo fossiliferous site should
be considered to be an excellent location
for a site Museum (National Monument
according to Chilean law) as it has been
proposed already (Tapia et al., 2022).
CONCLUSIONS
This assessment studies the neglected
historical records associated with fossil
wood collections gathered during the XIX
century and beginning of the XX century in
outcrops from the old Valparaiso province.
Only a partial record of these collections is
currently known and the whereabouts of
many of these specimens is still a partial
enigma. Nevertheless, these fossil localities
records named by well-known naturalists
such as C. Darwin, J. Dana, I. Domeyko,
R. A. Philippi and later by the geologist J.
Brüggen allow nding that the places from
where they were collected are in Valparaí-
so, Placilla/Curauma and Algarrobo. Since
then, large demographic and urban growth
in Valparaiso´s area would have obliter-
ated the older cited localities with one ex-
ception on the Algarrobo sea shore where,
despite the urban growth also covered the
historical inland outcrops, the episodic lo-
cal tectonic uplift associated to earthquakes
minus sea level rise is positive for the area,
leaving then, an increased erosion on the
beach, currently exposing 1.03 Ha outcrop
in a 450 m long beach front above tide sea
level, where would be likely to nd new
specimens in the foreseeable future.
Finally, these fossil wood specimens
from the Museo del Seminario de Valparaí-
so, Museo Fonck and Museo Histórico de
Placilla require further studies working
with thin sections in order to dene the fos-
sil wood taxonomy, which should be asso-
ciated with paleoecological assessments of
any new specimens associated with locali-
ties in situ in the area.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We thank Pamela Fuentes from Museo
Histórico de Placilla (Valparaiso), Fernan-
da Kasinger from Museo Fonck (Viña del
Mar), and Robert Seidel from Sedgwick
Museum of Earth Sciences (Cambridge,
UK) who provided help and info to study
their collections.
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Recibido: 03/04/2023 - Aceptado: 05/05/2023 - Publicado: 15/06/2023