Petrified Forest, Arizona

The Petrified Forest National Park has both the Petrified Forest and Painted Desert. To call it a forest is a bit over stated, but this is a fairly amazing area with a huge collection of petrified trees. The forest was buried 200 million years ago. Silicate replaced the wood and pressured formed it into rock. Parts of the wood-rock are multi-colored due to various minerals. Some "rock" logs look just like dead trees, some are extremely colorful (rainbow would be an understatement). It is very tempting to pick up souvenier rocks, but that is a minimum $275 fine. The gift shops at the park entrances sell samples harvested outside the park for only a couple bucks. These pictures do not really do justice to the area, it was well worth the visit. The park includes a number of petroglyphs and 700 year old Anasazi ruins.

I stopped by the weekend prior to a conference (HPC Users Group) in Albuquerque.
I also visited El Morro and El MalPais National Monuments in New Mexico on this trip.

There are some large intact logs and many where logs have split looking like they were sawed. The size ranges from a foot thick to over 9 feet in diameter and 170 feet long. On the right I am standing behind one log which is probably 5 feet.

A flowering cactus, and the Raven known as 'Dangerous Cliff'
My theory is Cliff was a low-budget park employee.
It was also suggested Cliff was waiting to nibble on remains of anybody who fell over.

Spectacular colors on these... and the pictures do not really show it.

(pictures taken June 2000)
Travel Index - Painted Desert - El Morro / El MalPais
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