Trailblazing: 100 Years of Our National Parks

Loan from National Park Service, Petrified Forest National Park
May 12, 2016
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petrified wood
Loan from National Park Service, Petrified Forest National Park

Petrified wood specimen, Triassic period
Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona

Arizona’s Petrified Forest formed more than 200 million years ago, when the area had a drastically different, vegetated landscape. Now a desert strewn with the fossilized, brilliantly colored remains of prehistoric trees, it became a national monument in 1906 and a national park in 1962. This status protects it from looters who would carry away the brilliant stones.

Loan from National Park Service, Petrified Forest National Park