Petrified forest

“ It’s my job, as representative of the people of this country, to see that there will always be this great natural display of petrified wood here where it was formed.”
As the young lady drove off with a gay wave of her hand and “I think you’re mean” tossed over her shoulder, the ranger turned to us with a rueful smile. “Happens every day,” he said. “You can’t blame people for wanting to take home a souvenir of the Petrified Forest, and the stuff is so pretty that kids, especially, just can’t help but want to pack it off. ”

“ What happened during the millenniums that the logs lay buried in their Chinle tombs?
How did these trees turn to stone? Most of our text books tell us that the petrification of wood is a replacement process. Bit by bit, water removed wood tissue and in its place left a mineral deposit in exactly the same form as the original, so that when the process had been completed there was no wood left but in its place an exact stone duplicate. ”

“ Northeastern Arizona is not the only area known to contain petrified wood, for it has been found in nearly every State and in foreign countries as well. Visitors from distant States are frequently surprised to discover, from a map in the monument’s museum, that petrified wood is to be found near their own homes. ”

“ The sand underfoot is light, almost like burnt earth, but the colors are there, mixed by the Super Artist.
This Painted Desert is a fitting frame for the Petrified Forest.
How To Reach The Petrified Forest
The Petrified Forest is one of the most popular and accessible units of the National Park Service, open every day in the year. Westbound tourists traveling by automobile may choose between two great continental highways that will lead directly to the “Forest”.
U. S. Highway No. 66 passes on the north and tourists may enter the Forest either from Adamana or Holbrook. ”

“ A large majority of the fossil trees in Petrified Forest National Monument represent a pine-like species belonging to a group now extinct in the northern hemisphere. Some individuals of this type 24 have diameters as great as ten feet and heights of more than 200 feet. ”

“ But by penetrating farther into the desert we come upon far more extensive petrifications, which might really deserve the name of " forests." In a depression of the Arabian plateau, to the south- east of Cairo, the trunks of trees of all sizes are found in such multitudes that certain tracts are exclusively covered with the siliceous stems or fragments of fossil wood. In the Libyan desert, west of the Pyramids, other " petrified forests " contain stems over sixty feet long, with their roots and branches, and even with the bark still perceptible in some places. ”

“ Gilroy concluded his story of the Petrified Forests, the scouts realized that they were almost there—at the Inland Lake of primeval times which had left such marvelous records of the Great Storm.
That day the tourists visited everything worth seeing in the two Petrified Forests, the second one covering an area of over two thousand acres. The girls marveled at the huge fallen tree trunks, the old giants of that long-ago mountainside, now transformed into agate and onyx with beautiful marblings of rich crimson, pastel greens, royal purples, dazzling gold—all woven and twisted together. ”

“ As forces of erosion lowered the surface of the ground little by little, the petrified logs, too hard to be affected, settled with it, eventually accumulating with sections of other logs that had been buried on a lower level. Thus, the present surface of the ground is rather thickly covered, in many spots, with wood that was originally scattered through approximately the upper 100 feet of this Chinle Formation. In the vicinity of the Rainbow and Third Forest, at least, about 300 feet more of this formation still remains. So far as we know, wood is to be found throughout this entire layer. ”

“ Because it is against the United States Law. After that comes consideration of future visitors to the Petrified Forest National Monument. When one reflects that there are about eighty thousand visitors here annually and that if each visitor took what pleased him, it is an unrefutable fact the best specimens would speedily disappear. A visitor would not be satisfied with one small piece. There would be the home folks to consider ”

“ In the monument are six separate “forests” where giant logs of agatized wood lie prostrate, surrounded by numerous broken sections and smaller chips and fragments.
The area is a part of the Painted Desert of northern Arizona, a region of banded rocks of many hues carved by wind and rain into a fantastic landscape. Here and there beds of shale contain perfectly preserved fossil leaves of plants of a remote age. Occasionally the bones of giant reptiles and amphibians are washed from their burial places in the deposits. ”

“ This is known to the quarrymen by the name of Dirt-bed, and seems, in former ages, to have supported a luxuriant vegetation; for all around are scattered the petrified fragments of an ancient forest. The prostrate stems and shattered branches of great trees are met at every step; but what is most striking and peculiar is, that, in many cases, the petrified stumps are still standing erect, with their roots fixed 189 in the thin stratum of loam, and their trunks stretching upward into the hard limestone rock. ”

“ Here many 9 logs are filled with crystals and the range of coloring found in the chips strewn over the landscape is marvelous. Many pebbles bear the impression of seashells, and deep in the heart of a section of petrified log was found a fossilized mussel.
Courtesy National Park Service
At one place in the First Forest a slender column of rock rises to the height of thirty or forty feet. This is the Eagle Rock.
There is little of the sandstone cap in this area, and the logs lie in the blue-gray marl formation. Here we find larger trees in greater masses than elsewhere. ”

“ In some places sulphur has been deposited.
Nine-tenths of the whole area is forest. The tree limit varies from nine thousand four hundred to nine thousand seven hundred feet. Few of the plateau localities are bare. Pine, poplar, balsam, cedar and spruce grow abundantly and many to large size. In the spring and geyser localities the trees are often covered by deposits and buried. Whole forests have been thus entombed. Petrified trees are common. Wild animals are wholly unmolested. ”

“ On the steep sides of a ravine one thousand feet deep, there exist entire beds of petrified leaves and other débris imbedded in a very ferruginous rock. The vast accumulation of leaves is truly surprising—trunks yet in place; flowers, fruit, insects accompanying them. M. Heer, who has studied these precious remains, says that here arose a vast forest where abounded sequoias, poplars, oaks, magnolias, ebony, holly, walnut, and a host of other species. Still farther north, at 80° of latitude, were found aquatic ”

“ Occasionally the plant tissues have assumed a black and somewhat ragged appearance, giving the impression of charred wood. A section of a recent burnt piece of wood resembles very closely some of the fossil twigs from the coal seam nodules. It is possible that in such cases we have portions of mineralised tissues which were first burnt in a forest fire or by lightning and then infiltrated with a petrifying solution. An example of one of these black petrified plants is shown in fig. ”

“ The outstanding features of the Rainbow Forest are the logs themselves, which may be seen in all stages of preservation, some not entirely uncovered, some lying on the sides of the marl hills waiting their time to be let down by erosion, to the levels below, some almost at the top of the sandstone cap, and others in fragments at the bottoms of ravines; the Government Museum, which 7 is free to the public, located half a mile from the highway. In this building the Government has collected outstanding specimens of wood from all sections of the Reservation. ”

“ And, evidently, when the “habitat” of such a creature was suddenly invaded by a siliceous crystalline solution, extinction of the animal and a petrifying investment of his abode would be simultaneous.
Lastly. If the objects here petrified had been vegetable in their extraction, should we not, with the aid of the microscope, be able to identify them? But this I have never yet succeeded in doing; yet all the petrified “woods” are well known. I have myself obtained slabs of the “acacia” from the coast of South Devon; of the “beech,” in Sussex; of coniferous wood almost everywhere. ”

“ Made by chipping through outer dark sandstone surface with sharp tool, probably of petrified wood. The many interesting figures, symbolic designs, and characters have never been interpreted. Please do not deface them.
Lower Blue Forest Drive.—Fine side road—1⁄2 mile to parking area. Typical badlands exposures.
Blue Forest Connecting Trail.—Gravel trail—1 mile long—50 to 60 minutes. Leads to Upper Blue Forest Parking Area, where driver can meet anyone walking across trail. Logs on 3 levels. The only forest with pink logs. Remarkable “chip” piles. ”

“ As it seems to be a law of nature that animals whose life is suddenly extinguished while yet in full vigor, are the most likely to be preserved by petrification, we find here one of the conditions favorable to the formation of such a petrified stratum. The bottom of the Liimfjord was covered with a vigorous growth of aquatic plants, belonging both to fresh and to salt water, especially Zostera marina. This vegetation totally disappeared after the irruption, and, in some instances, was buried by the sand ”

“ The presence of a large and diverse habitat above the ground is of great significance in the rainforest, for of the non-aquatic components of the herpetofauna in the rainforests of southern El Petén, 42 per cent of the species spend at least part of their lives in the bushes and trees. Another important part of the forest is the subterranean level—the rich mulch, underground tunnels, and rotting subterranean vegetation. Of the 78 species of amphibians and reptiles in southern El Petén, seven are primarily fossorial, and half-a-dozen others are secondarily fossorial. ”

“ The masses of fallen timber, blocking up the streamlets and obstructing drainage, would create a more or less complete stagnation of water upon the land; the bark, branches, and leaves undergoing a process of decay would form the deepest layers of the peat; rank herbage and aquatic plants springing up and dying in endless succession, would form annual accumulations of matter, which in course of time would also be assimilated into peat, and in this manner the moss overlaying the original clayey surface and burying the ancient forest, would grow step by step to its present dimensions. ”

“ I may add, as showing the former nature of the woods, that the charcoal found in the barrows, embankments, and the Roman potteries, is made from oak and beech, but principally from the latter. Since, too, the deer have been destroyed, the young shoots of holly are springing up in every direction, and another generation may again see the Forest still more resembling its old condition. As a proof that the Hordle Cliffs were covered with timber, the fishermen dredging for the septaria in the Channel constantly drag up large boles of oaks, which are locally known as "mootes." ”

“ Lastly, from its very nature, the New Forest is ever beautiful, at every season of the year, even in the depth of winter. The colouring of summer is not more rich. Then the great masses of holly glisten with their brightest green; the purple light gathers round the bare oaks, and the yews stand out in their shrouds of black. Then the first budding branch of furze sparkles with gold, and the distant hill-side glows with the red layers of beech-leaves. And if a snow-storm passes up from the sea, then every bough is suddenly covered with a silver filigree of whitest moss. ”

“ There is no undergrowth as in our forests at home, but there are here and there gray rocks, large and small, covered with fresh green moss, or with gray, pink and yellow lichen. There were rustic benches all along, but the forest was quite deserted except for an occasional woodman with a fire and piles of neatly chopped wood, or some little boys drawing carts filled with bundles of sticks for winter use. ”

“ A giant forest now replaces the stunted and bushy timber of the Terai proper and clothes the steep mountain-sides with dense, deep-green, dripping vegetation. The trees are of great height, and are sheathed and festooned with climbing plants of many kinds. Bauhinias and robinias, like huge cables, join tree to tree. Peppers, vines, and convolvulus twine themselves round the trunks and branches, and hang in graceful pendants from the boughs. And the trees, besides being hung with climbers, are also decked with orchids and with foliaceous lichens and mosses. ”

“ The exacting demands of our modern artificial civilization have drawn ceaselessly upon [Pg 89] these resources, and the assiduous ax and the fire that follows in its train have invaded even the most secluded regions. The resulting barren spaces, where they have not become cultivated land, have either reverted to the young white pine itself or have been transformed into oak barrens and open forests of broadleaf trees. Thus the aspect of the region has been altered, though many a limited spot may be found in which the tall majesty of the primeval forest still finds its full expression. ”