Outside the National Park, which protects over 95% of the petrified wood, mining is allowed in a few places on private land. Most of the fossil logs are run-down and decayed and are not found on the surface of the ground. They have to be dug out of the vulcanic ashes using big earth-moving machinery, as far as 30-feet deep. Only very few pieces are in a good state of preservation and can be processed into polished slices, they are rarely more than 2 feet long.
When selecting our pieces of petrified logs, we apply very strict criteria of quality and esthetics. The selected logs - less than 1% of all dug out pieces - are packed and shipped to our workshop in France.