[2] The petrified forest was first referred to in print (as Kurrur Kurran) within a grammar of the local Aboriginal people published in Sydney in 1834 by missionary minister Lancelot Threlkeld.
[citation needed] In the meantime the best available scientific collection of silicified wood from the fossil forest (itself listed as local heritage) passed to the care of the City of Lake Macquarie which after keeping it for some time disposed of it (into the Lake) without notifying any of the geologists interested in or studying the fossil tree horizon.
[citation needed] The fossil tree horizon extends at least as far as the coast, where it can be found a little to the south of Catherine Hill Bay.
[citation needed] Work continues trying to trace if this might be a very extensive horizon traceable right across the preserved Sydney Basin (e.g. to Marrangaroo in the west).
that the trees were both killed and buried (preserved) by ash from a volcanic eruption,[2] likely occurring somewhere well off the present eastern coastline.