Petrified

Well, that's a word not used a lot in Kentucky. We left the Grand Canyon and the Sunset Volcano and headed through Flagstaff and then drove through the Petrified forest National Park.

Here is the story in short. 250 million years ago this area was a tropical rainforest and some of the area became a flood plain. Of course the trees in the flood plain died and fell over and the flood covered them in layer upon layer of silt. The silt solidified them, turning them to rock. Then years and years go by and the wind removed the silt and revealed the trees.

Scientists have matched the trees that were solidified to trees that can now only be found in the Rainforests of South America.

Below is a large chunk of a solidified tree.


Here I am being goofy, but the 250 million old hunk of tree is awesome.


The tree below fell over and the soil around it eroded and it made a bridge across this gully. Back in the 1920's or so, they used pillars to hold it up so it would not fall and eventually they used concrete to hold it up