Trees Frozen in Time

I visited Petrified Forest National Park last weekend...fifth NP of the trip.  Here's the Painted Desert in the northern part of the park.  After two weeks of remarkable light caused by unsettled weather ranging from thunderstorms to snow, it was actually kind of a downer to have a clear, sunny day.  Not nearly as interesting as black, looming clouds or snow dappled landscapes.

These badlands are littered with wood.  The wood was part of living trees 220 million years ago, in the Triassic era.  Blow up the pic and you can see chunks of wood all over the place.  They are, of course, petrified...buried in mud, over the eons the wood was replaced with silica which, amazingly, hardened into rock with almost perfect likenesses of the vanished wood.

The badlands in the park show a fine variety of shapes and colors.

It appears these chunks came right off someones firewood pile last week.  But they're solid rock...220 million years old!

Badland buttresses.  Much of the rock in the park is very soft sandstone or conglomerate.  It wears away at a fast rate geologically, exposing pieces of petrified wood which are swept into the gullies and out onto the alluvial plains.

Many pieces show tree rings very clearly.

The badlands of Mordor.

The Lizards are standing on the old wood, channeling their Triassic ancestors who walked in the prehistoric forests.

Great tree rings and beautiful crystal colors are common in Petrified Forest.  Didn't read anything about the types of trees these were, but much of the bark looks very similar to that of modern day redwoods.

One of the largest logs in the park.