Why Hunting For 20-Million-Year-Old Petrified Wood Is So Dangerous In Indonesia | Risky Business

It's so soul crushing to see how often the hard working people who make all these industries possible get the least out of them. They risk the most for the smallest return..

The mining process is ludicrously dangerous. A 4 ton piece of this is $480?? crazy cheap for the effort.

Mining amber here in Poland is done with a really high pressure water stream, pieces of petrified wood often comes along with it. It's depressing too see such poor working conditions. My heart goes to everyone there.

Just imagine if Business Insider paid these guys standard performance rates for the video. They could probably retire on that amount of money.

Even before this video, I wasn't interested in petrified wood. Now I want petrified wood even less than before.

The people who do the most labor get the least

He said the product that he finds is too good for his house and then he laughs. It is a sad cruel world

too many intermediaries, workers like those get fucked because they have no capital and can't organize, they can only sell at whatever price they are given to feed themselves, but make no mistake, their labour line the pockets of countless middlemen. I'm not saying these intermediaries add no value at all, but given the imbalance in information and negotiating power, they still get a massively unfair share of the wealth

Indonesian moss agate is my fav gemstone and it is the most beautiful scenic agate to me. These people work hard mining this stuff and don't get near the credit they should.

If you ever complain about your commute to work, watch this video. It will quickly put your life into perspective.

These poor miners deserve more. All of us prefer branded products instead of buying from original producers or makers.

All support to this man and others like him everywhere. What's saddening is always witnessing individuals striving and toiling, only for others to reap the greater benefits.

Mad respect for the miner and wood worker. They provide their family a decent life with their diligence. Like this video explain, casualty on this mining operation is exist but a rare case.

Australian coal mines in the Bowen & Stuart Basins all full of the stuff. As well as petrified leaves imprinted in the fault lines of rock, like a perfect black and white 'stamp' of various leaves, ferns etc. Entire petrified trees are routinely seen in the rock (strata) above the coal seams. (overburden) But sadly it is all simply destroyed by the large earthmoving equipment and loaded into trucks and sent to the tip face to be dumped, buried and forgotten as though it is no different to the other rock covering the coal seams. Extraordinary sight seeing the material falling away from a dig face and seeing the branches of a tree, made from rock, slowly emerge and hamg in the air, before being destroyed as the bucket of the loading unit grabs another scoop from that area. Stuff is surprisingly heavy too. Attempts to put pieces aside for retrieving later by light vehicle are usually fruitless as the pieces put aside are usually discovered to be far to heavy to lift by hand. Such a shameful waste

Great video. Indeed it is soul-crushing.

I like the phrasing "no one can afford my living expenses" for no one's paying high enough wages.

Worked in the Willamette Valley in Oregon. near the river.. tons of petrified wood there. Though those pieces were smaller and ranged to only 30-40 millions years old. I have a bunch of pieces in my office. Very cool

I live in India and we find this wood in tons in coal mines. My grandfather used to drive coal trailers to carry them to factories for processing. He used to say that it was a huge loss to the coal corporations. Petrified wood consists mostly of wood converted to quartz which doesn't burn at all and is thrown away or often workers take good specimens home for use . Once he told us that a huge petrified tree( probably was Himalayan cedar as identified from the fossilized leaves) was found . It was to be thrown away. But grandpa brought that huge stump and got a table built from it and a couple chairs. Nowadays, it is illegally shipped to the international market, and excavation of this stuff is banned.....

Plenty in the Eastern part of Central Australia. I don't think you can take it anymore but I got a large amount of it decades ago. It does look great when sliced and polished. It is on the surface here as it is much older that 20 million years and has been weathered to the surface.

that table for 3800$ is crazy cheap, if it were at a retail furniture store it would be well over 20k$