Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona
© Ian Shive/Tandem Stills + Motio
Party in the petrified forest. Petrified Forest National Park
The burliest lumberjack with the best-oiled chainsaw couldn't slice the massive 'timbers' found in Arizona's Petrified Forest National Park. So why are these giant stone logs segmented in such symmetrical stumps?
Each of these smooth splits occurred in an instant as the brittle quartz cracked under geologic pressure. But each of those instants was eons in the making. First, 225 million years ago, the trees were buried by torrents of river silt. Then mineral deposits slowly seeped into the trees and replaced the decaying wood. Much later, around 60 million years ago, the entire Colorado Plateau began shifting, generating crushing forces that finally divided the petrified logs.
Related Images
Boathouse on Lake Minnewanka in Banff National Park, Alberta
Climbing Athabasca Glacier in Jasper National Park, Alberta, Canada as the Aurora Borealis glows
Yunishigawa Kamakura Festival in Tochigi Prefecture, Japan
Ice-fishing village near L'Anse-Saint-Jean, Quebec, Canada
Mount Rainier National Park in Washington state
A ladybird hibernates in Tewin, England
Park City, Utah, for the Sundance Film Festival, which begins today
Snowy owl
Bing Today Images
Notre-Dame Cathedral, Paris, France
Dec 08, 2024
La Rocque Harbour, St. Clement, Island of Jersey
Dec 08, 2023
The Cathedral of Florence, Italy
Dec 08, 2022
Rocca Calascio in Abruzzo, Italy
Dec 08, 2020
Two Jack Lake in Banff National Park, Alberta
Dec 08, 2018
Sibelius Monument, Helsinki, Finland
Dec 08, 2017
