Petrified Forest National Monument, Arizona

By Dama Margaret Smith

The Petrified Forest

In Arizona, that land of mystic beauties and many wonders, lies a great tract of land that, once upon a time, was covered withwaters of the sea. How many centuries ago the ocean waves sparkled and rippled over what is now the desert, no one can definitelysay. But from the nature of the stratum is which great logs are embedded, and the fossilized reptiles found, it is known thatthey were entombed during the Triassic age, many millions of years ago.

Petrified logs are found over a wide area, more than a hundred square miles being covered with varying amounts of the “stone”trees. This fossilized “forest” is greater in area, more highly colored, and contains more petrified wood than any like deposit in the world.

Many visitors who have heard of the “forest” drive through miles of the Reservation and ask at the Museum where they canfind the Petrified Forest. Inquiry discloses that they expected to find an area of standing trees, trunks merely turned to stone,branches and all. Perhaps they have seen one or more such trunks in Yellowstone National Park and think to find hundreds of themhere. Yet, when they learn the story of these fallen monarchs, and catch a glimpse of the dazzling beauties of agate and carnelian,jasper and onyx, no signs of disappointment are seen. Let the visitor but leave his car to view the logs, and step by step he is led onby here a gleaming fragment of carnelian, and there the soft sheen of jasper and topaz. It is like the carpet of Fairyland.

These trees did not grow where they lie, or even within many miles of where they are found. They were carried from a long distanceto this region by flood waters, and after whirling and drifting around in the inland sea then covering the land, they becamewaterlogged and finally sank to the bottom, where some eddy or whirlpool carried them. Here they lay for countless centuries,slowly being covered by silt and sand, while yet other logs came to rest above them. Thousands of years elapsed during this driftingand sinking into oblivion under the ooze of this Triassic Sea. And then came Old Ocean, later on in the Mesozoic Age submergingthe entire region and adding its weight to the terrific pressure already brought to bear on the burial place of the giants. This pressurepacked the sands to stone, and compressed the clays to shale. Already the logs were impregnated with a strong solution of silica,with iron and manganese also present, and the pressure forced it into every fiber. Atom by atom the cells of the wood were dissolved andreplaced by the silica, which hardened, taking the exact shape of the cell it destroyed. While the logs were probably partly petrifiedbefore the influx of the ocean waters, a great many show that enormous pressure was brought to bear while they were yet flexible.

Some logs recently brought to light by the summerfloods, are mashed almost flat, cross sectionsmeasuring eighteen inches one way andmore than five feet the other.

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