Petrified National Forest - Painted Desert

The Petrified Forest is known for its fossils, especially fallen trees that lived in the Late Triassic, about 225 million years ago.  Paleontologist have studied fossils in the park since 1920.

Rauisuchians provide an excellent example of convergent evolution. Though their body looks similar to meat eaters like Tyrannosaurus and Allosaurus who lived late during the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, they are more closely related to Crocodiles than to Dinosaurs. 

Petrified wood is surprisingly heavy, weighing nearly 200 pounds per cubic foot, and its hardness is seven on a 10-point scale. A mix of silt, mud and volcanic ash buried these logs. This sediment cut off oxygen to the tree and the logs slowly decayed. Silica-laden groundwater seeped through the logs and replaced the original wood tissue with silica deposits. Eventually the silica crystallized in quartz, and the logs were preserved as petrified wood.  

Check out the information regarding the above section of petrified wood. 

This petrified tree has diameter of 10-feet.

Click on above photo to enlarge.  

This structure, called Agate House, is a partial reconstruction of an Indian Pueblo built almost ten centuries ago.  The petrified wood will far outlast the mud and mortar used to hold them together.

Here's a closer look at one of the sections.  Petrified wood's varied colors came from minerals in the silica-saturated waters.  Iron, carbon, manganese and some times cobalt and chromium produced patterns and blends of yellow, red, black, blue, brown, white and pink.

Those familiar with the Badlands sometime believe that the formation is merely piles of sand or mud. Badlands are actually rock, albeit relatively soft. The mud stones and clay stones easily wear away under centuries of wind and water, the outer layer weathers into a crumbling surface.  We are taking a walk at the Blue Mesa Trail.   Notice the hood, gloves and jacket.  It was very cold during our visit.

The Painted Desert is a United States desert of badlands in the Four Corners area from the Grand Canyon National Park into the Petrified Forest National Park. Much of the area within the Petrified Forest National Park is protected as the Petrified Forest National Wilderness Area.

The desert is composed of stratified layers of easily erodible siltstone, mudstone, and shale of the Triassic Chinle Formation. These fine grained rock layers contain abundant iron and manganese compounds which provide the pigments for the various colors of the region.

The day we visited the park it was very cold and sun was intermittent.  During a bright sunny day the colors of the desert are stunning.