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Petrified wood forest11/4/2023 Brittle petrified logs often broke into pieces, giving the illusion of ancient trees having been deliberately sawed into segments. Iron and other minerals lent rainbows of color to the petrified trees. Crystals occasionally replaced individual cell walls, preserving the petrified wood in detail. When winds carried ash from distant volcanoes, minerals from the ash infiltrated the wood, forming crystals. While many of the trees rotted away, some were buried by the quick-moving water. Lining abundant waterways, ancient trees occasionally fell into the flowing water, perhaps blown down by winds or killed by insect infestations. Crocodile-like reptiles armored, plant-eating reptiles and Coelophysis-dainty, fleet-footed, meat-eating dinosaurs-all lived here.Īs the park’s name indicates, however, its foremost fossils are petrified logs. Hot and humid, the region was dominated by a huge river system, where horseshoe crabs left footprints in soft stream- and lake-bottom mud. Some 225 million years ago, during the Triassic Period, this area rested near Earth’s equator, part of the massive supercontinent Pangaea. Petrified Forest National Park preserves traces of an ancient, vastly different landscape. To the south, the Blue Mesa region features hoodoos-otherworldly spires topped with big rocks. In the northern part of the park, the Painted Desert occasionally gives rise to colorful dust storms. Colors range from pale pinkish beige to deep rust. Sunlight shines from the southeast, casting almost-black shadows on the northern and western slopes, but earth tones dominate this arid area. White outlines indicate park boundaries, and thin lines show where a railroad and interstate pass through the park. On November 28, 2002, the Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus on NASA’s Landsat 7 satellite captured this natural-color image of Petrified Forest National Park in eastern Arizona. Initially set aside to preserve fossil wood, the area has yielded other prehistoric treasures too. The park was established as a national monument in 1906. Petrified wood occurs throughout the United States, but some of the most abundant and highest quality examples of these fossils occur in Petrified Forest National Park in eastern Arizona.
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