08/09/2024
“I am dead inside.”’- Michael Scott
Petrified Forest National Park, in northeastern Arizona, is known for — and named in honor of — its extensive deposits of petrified wood. In fact, the park contains one of the world’s largest and most colorful concentrations of petrified wood.
So what is petrified wood, and why was it so frightened that it’s now unable to move? Most likely, millions of years ago, a dinosaur, uninvited, approached a gathering of trees. At first they were afraid. Then they were petrified. All their rings turned to stone inside. But they survived. Yes, they survived.
We were told that’s not 100% accurate, so we will try again.
When the trees died (dinosaurs?) they washed into an ancient river system and formed log jams and buried sediment. Minerals, including silica dissolved from volcanic ash, absorbed into the porous wood over hundreds and thousands of years and 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 you see today 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.
Image: Closeup of a specimen of petrified wood. NPS/Becca Miller Petrified Forest National Park, AZ.
