View allAll Photos Tagged petrified
While waiting on truck repairs and servicing I noticed this bush that was green with new leaves on one side and dead and silvery on the other side. Decided to take a few pictures. Happy Friday the 13th.
It is hard to contemplate that number of storms endured by the exposed fossils of petrified wood at the Petrified Forest National Park.
The Petrified Forest is a US National Park located in northeast Arizona. "The trees lived over 200 million years ago. Since then, contents moved to today's positions, the region was uplifted, and climate changed. What was once a tropical environment became today's semi-arid grassland. Over time, the wind and water wore away the rock layers and exposed fossilized ancient plants and animals. The hills will yield more fossils as weathering sculpts the Painted Desert's soft sedimentary rock."
Source: The National Park Service
Nikon D800
Nikon 24-70 f/2.8 at 38 mm
1/640 sec at f/5.6 ISO 100
September 21, 2014
The Badlands is a range of hills, plateaus, mesas, and brightly colored hills that stretchs from Texas to Canada. Painted multicolors by the forces of nature, these Badlands are in the Petrified Forest near Holbrook, Arizona, USA.
Here's another photo rescue attempt from a scanned 35mm slide I took in 1970 at the Blue Mesa overlook in Petrified Forest National Park. I wonder if that log is still standing on its pedestal 55 years later? Not sure; I don't see it in my 2021 photos from Blue Mesa, but I see a number of logs that are lying on the ground at the base of ravines, including one about this size at the base of a gray hill broken into two pieces. Whether that is the same log, it's hard to say, but I suspect that decades of storms have sent this log tumbling down by now.
Scene from the Giant Logs trail in the southern part of Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona. This trail has the largest and most beautiful specimens, with colorful crystals of quartz, manganese, iron and carbon. As uneven ground erodes beneath them, the logs can crack open as seen here.
Wood petrification as seen in the park requires special conditions. Since trees normally decay quickly after falling, these logs must have become saturated with mineral-rich water from volcanic ash before fungi, bacteria and insects could destroy them. Some of the specimens retain amounts of the original lignin.
There is also evidence the logs were transported some distance before being buried. None of them are found in upright positions, and there are no limbs or root balls attached, indicating that the logs jostled against one another in a current. The energy to transport trees this large and bury them quickly must have been considerable.
Ambient dusk light fills the area known as Petrified Dunes in Arches NP. The clouds overhead catch soft pastel shades from the setting sun.
The pieces of wood you see are very old, deposited there when this was under water! www.arizona-leisure.com/petrified-forest.html
Stark but pretty land ... under that cool ominous sky. Just glad lightning did not strike me ... it was everywhere at this time.
As the storm continued to roll in as Ms. Krach and I were making our escape, I had to pull over and get another capture of the raging storm.
If I had known this trailer was going to be heading past, I would have used the tripod and got the light trail is it went by ... THAT would have been a real cool shot, and might have actually captured some lightning then too.
Oh well ...
Petrified Forest National Park
At the Wigwam Village Motel in Holbrook, large sections of petrified wood (fossilized tree trunks) are used as wheel stops to separate the vehicle parking areas from pedestrian areas. I find it fascinating that these huge fossils are used for such a mundane purpose!
Travelling to the USA for a month. Seeing 16 states in 26 days, including California, Texas and New York.
Watch my page for images from those states, including San Francisco, Yosemite and Joshua Tree.
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There is no Question this national park is otherwordly. Images do no do it justice, it must be witnessed first hand.
This scene was truly amazing - the amount of "petrified wood" - wood that essentially turned to stone - was unbelievable. I had one thing in mind before I saw it; afterwards, I realize that my pre-conception was inaccurate but that reality was actually much more beautiful!
If you go to Arizona, I would recommend a stop at Painted Desert & Petrified Forest National Park! This is something you don't see everyday... or ever!
Fall was very wet in the Southwest this year. Record rains in the Front Range and in the Trans Pecos. The rains began over Arizona before sweeping North-East and intensifying.
This was toward the end of that rainy season but it still left a beautiful sky. It actually drizzled earlier in the day but as so often is the case, most of the rain evaporated before hitting the ground.
The clouds made a perfect backdrop for the stone logs of the petrified forest and the colorful shales of the Chinle formation.
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Taken on the Petrified Forest Loop Trail at Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota, USA. I only went in and out to the northern forest.
Stace enjoying North Dakota's 55 million year old petrified forest in Theodore Roosevelt National Park
Well we have made it to Mammoth Lakes and have been enjoying terrific weather exploring the area. As we left Page, Arizona I caught this early morning view of the "petrified dunes" a few miles west.
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In the "crater", such as it is (it's not really a crater), you can see pieces of petrified wood, which have basically turned to stone. This part of Arizona was weird - it was a different color (less vibrant), but no less distinctive. We were in quite a rush that day and had to see a number of sites before an ATV ride, so we were more hurried than I would have liked.
Petrified Forest is a very different National Park!
It's amazing to go someplace and see brilliantly-colored petrified wood scattered willy nilly all over - reminders of a once-lush, vegetation-filled land millions of years ago. This is the kind of scene you van view when you travel to the less-visited Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona. There are two entrances, the north entrance of which is right next to Interstate 40.
Copyright Rebecca L. Latson, all rights reserved.
Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona - This image from a vacation taken several years ago popped up on my monitor yesterday and I thought it was one worth sharing ...
Even though the wide-angle lens distorts (on purpose) the length of this giant petried log, you can tell this is a very large log. It drifted along in shallow water through a coastal swamp until the root crown (the part closest to the camera) snagged on a bar or berm that held the log in place as the slow moving water flowed around it. It was covered by sediments filling in the swamp quickly in geological time. These water filled sediments acted as a barrier to keep oxygen away from the log so that the normal decay processes were retarded, preserving the wood.
As the log was buried further and further, two things happened: the wood began to be replaced by silica from the surrounding sediments and the weight of these sediments flattened the tree vertically. Most of the petrified logs in Bisti show this flattened form. This is another reason we know that the burial was rapid here with high sedimentation rates.
The petrified logs from The Petrified Forrest National Park in Arizona are much older. They date to about 225 million years ago. They are agatized and are very dense and colorful.
These logs are about 66 million years old and have not been agatized. The silica replacement is incomplete here.
Although different, they are beautiful and help tell a fascinating story about how this area evolved from a coastal swamp to a high desert erosional fantasy land of hoodoos and petrified wood.
I visited this area with my brother as we driving home from the 2017 NMGS Fall Field Conference. While I was processing this photo, I noticed that he was in the picture. If you look hard enough, you can see him.
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A planned trip to the Somerset coast to explore these wonderful trees at sunset. Killed by sea water following a breach of sea defences, they now stand in a wonderful desert-like setting, providing a great subject. A first outing here will definitely not be the last, as the trees lend themselves to being photographed at all times of the day and night, and in all weathers. I am already looking forward to my next trip. Fujifilm X-T30, Fujifilm XF 10-24mm f4 R OIS - ISO200/f11/1/30sec