Petrified Forest National Park Arizona was designated a national park on December 8th, 1962. Petrified Forest was the 30th national park established in the United States. The park is 221,390 acres. Like each park in our National Park System, Petrified Forest National Park needs to be on your bucket list of places to visit!
The world’s first true national park was created with the signing of the Yellowstone National Park Act on March 1st, 1878. The act established more than two million acres of land in Wyoming and Montana that “is hereby reserved and withdrawn from settlement, occupancy, or sale under the laws of the United States, and dedicated and set apart as a public park or pleasuring-ground for the benefit and enjoyment of the people; and all persons who shall locate or settle upon or occupy the same, or any part thereof, except as hereinafter provided, shall be considered trespassers and removed therefrom.”
Today there are 63 national parks in the United States and a total of 433 nationally designated sites across 50 states, the District of Columbia and US territories. Thes include national Battlefields, National Historic Sites, National Monuments, national Recreation Areas and more. In addition, many countries around the world have followed suit and established their own national parks.
Each of our national parks is unique and offers incredible experiences. Yellowstone, Yosemite and Grand Canyon National Park are probably the most recognized of our national parks, but there are 60 more! Every single one is worth a visit, some worth more than just one visit! Describing our parks with words can be difficult. Images better convey what the national parks of the United States are all about.
Petrified Forest National Park
From the National Park Service description:
While sometimes called a high desert, the main environment of the park is Intermountain Basin semi-arid steppe and grassland (shortgrass prairie).
Over 13,000 years of human history can be found in the park, including over 800 archeological and historic sites.
Petrified Forest National Park is the only national park site that contains a segment of the Historic Route 66 alignment. Part of the National Old Trails Highway also passed through the park.
Exposed at Petrified Forest is one of the most continuous sections of Triassic-aged rocks anywhere in the world. These rocks were deposited by enormous rivers between 208 and 225 million years ago and include an incredible diversity of fossils. The Chinle Formation of the Triassic Period is the main geologic formation of the park. The Bidahochi Formation outcrops in the north, laid down during the Miocene and Pliocene of the Quaternary Period, about 3-8 million years ago.
When the trees died, they washed into an ancient river system and formed log jams, buried sediment. Minerals, including silica dissolved from volcanic ash, absorbed into the porous wood over hundreds and thousands of years crystallized within the cellular structure, replacing the organic material as it broke down over time. If there were larger spaces such as a hollow or crack in the logs, crystals of clear quartz, purple amethyst, yellow citrine, and smoky quartz formed.
The brilliant colors in the petrified wood come mainly from trace minerals. Pure quartz is white, manganese oxides form blue, purple, black, and brown, and iron oxides provide hues from yellow through red to brown and black.
Blue Mesa Morning
Milky Way over Battleship Rock
Evening in Jasper Forest
Monsoon Clouds over Painted Desert
Pleiades Over Hoodoo Ridge
Rainbow Forest
Devil’s Playground Hoodoos
Petrified Forest National Wilderness Area
Angels’ Garden in Petrified Forest National Wilderness Area
Petrified Log, Crystal Forest
As you can see from these pictures, this lesser-known park is filled with beauty and wonder! Petrified Forest National Park Arizona is slightly remote but the three hour drive from Phoenix or Albuquerque is worth it!
Image Credits:
- All images courtesy of US National Park Service. Thank you to photographers: Andrew V Kearns, Jacob Holgerson, Stuart Holmes, Scott Williams.