BGuthrie Photos: AZ -- Petrified Forest Natl Park -- Painted Desert

AZ -- Petrified Forest Natl Park -- Painted Desert:

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Copyrights: All pictures were taken by amateur photographer Bruce Guthrie (me!) who retains copyright on them. Free for non-commercial use with attribution. See the [Creative Commons] definition of what this means. "Photos (c) Bruce Guthrie" is fine for attribution. (Commercial use folks can of course contact me.) Feel free to use in publications and pages with attribution but you don't have permission to sell the photos themselves. A free copy of any printed publication using any photographs is requested. Descriptive text, if any, is from a mixture of sources, quite frequently from signs at the location or from official web sites; copyrights, if any, are retained by their original owners.

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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. PETPAI_060524_002.JPG: The Painted Desert: The Painted Desert stretches before you as an outdoor museum of fossilized plants and animals. Its striking colors emanate from the Chinle Formation of the Late Triassic which has been eroded by the Little Colorado River drainage system. An aerial view of the Painted Desert reveals tie-dyed corrugated hills or highly colored sedimentary rock, mostly soft, fine-grained mudstone and claystone. Also present are harder beds of more somber-colored siltstone, sandstone, and conglomerates. The wide range of reddish color in these rocks is due to the presence of iron minerals. The Chinle Formation is a storehouse of plant and animal fossils that provide evidence of a time when giant amphibians and reptiles ruled the Earth. If you look deep into the Painted Desert, you may see large fragments of petrified wood.
2. PETPAI_060524_015.JPG: Early Explorers: U.S. Army Lt. Amiel Whipple, surveying for a railroad route along the 35th Parallel about one mile south of here, passed down the broad sandy wash below in December 1853. Impressed with the deposits of petrified wood visible along the banks, Whipple named it Lithodendron ("stone tree") Creek. Although American Indians have long used petrified wood for projectile points, knives, scrapers, and other tools, Whipple was one of the earliest explorers to report its presence in this area. The expedition's artist, Balduin Mollhausen, published accounts of his visit and the first illustrations of petrified wood. Jules Marcou, a geologist who accompanied the expedition, published the first professional description of Triassic plant fossils and rocks found in the Southwest. Between 1857 and 1859, Edward Fitzgerald Beale and his surveying expedition established the Beale Wagon Road along the 35th Parallel. In an interesting army experiment, camels were used to transport men and supplies along this route. Today, Interstate 40 lies close to the 35th Parallel line surveyed by these early explorers.
3. PETPAI_060524_022.JPG: A Gap in the Geologic Record: The black basalt that caps the cliffs behind you stands in stark contrast to the colorful Chinle Formation visible throughout the Painted Desert. Below this layer of basalt, a horizontal line cuts across the face of the mesa and separates rocks of two different geologic periods. The pink mudstone below this line belongs to the Chinle Formation deposited about 225 million years ago. The brown mudstone and basalt layers above the line represent the Bidahochi Formation deposited only 5 to 8 million years ago. How is it that only this thin line represents more than 200 million years of geologic history? This gap is known as an "unconformity." Geologists believe the missing layers were more than 1,000 feet thick and that they were eroded over the years by running water and wind -- forces that continue to shape this landscape. The emplacement of the basalt has temporarily stopped erosion on the Painted Desert rim, while it has continued in the valley below.
4. PETPAI_060524_047.JPG: Origins of the Dinosaurs: Giant reptiles and amphibians ruled the tropical waterways that existed here over 200 million years ago during the Late Triassic Period. Then, new and very different animals arrived on the scene to share the environment -- small dinosaurs. Fossil bones of an early dinosaur, Chindesaurus bryansmalli, were discovered near here in 1984, and the park immediately received worldwide attention. The fossil find was affectionately named "Gertie" after an early cartoon dinosaur. The appearance of the small creature in the fossil record may be a key to understanding the origin, evolutionary rise, and success of the dinosaurs that followed. The Chinle Formation contains a storehouse of knowledge. Amazing varieties of plant, animal, insect, and invertebrate fossils continue to reveal new and fascinating information about the life and times of a land that was very different.
5. PETPAI_060524_051.JPG: Painted Desert Inn
6. PETPAI_060524_074.JPG: Badlands: Badlands was a term that could send a shiver down the spine of the most intrepid explorer of the past. The term originated with indigenous people of Montana and the Dakotas, the phrase "mako sica" literally meaning "badland." Spanish trappers described such regions as el malpais, again "badlands." Today the term refers to a spectacular, highly eroded landscape. Summer thunderstorms and winter snowmelt easily carve the soft shale and sandstone into a maze of sharp ridges, steep hillsides, and deep V-shaped gullies. Water drains through tunnels, or "pipes" inside the hills and gullies, washing out loose soils and undermining slopes that later collapse as sinks and slumps. This landscape changes rapidly with every cloudburst and drop of water. Three inches of soil can wash away from the steepest slopes in ten years. Badland topography is found throughout the world. Here in the United States, Badlands National Park in South Dakota, Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah, Death Valley National Park in California, and Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota also preserve examples of badlands.
7. PETPAI_060524_114.JPG: Finding Fossils: Consistently locating fossils requires special knowledge of geology and paleontology -- and a bit of luck! But bringing home the find may present the biggest challenge to researchers. Fossils usually lie in remote areas far from museums, universities, and roads. Their large size makes them particularly heavy, and the fragility brought on by their great age requires that they be handled with extreme care. Researchers frequently discover fossils by finding a fragment of bone protruding from a cliff or bank. After removing the covering earth -- first with picks and shovels, and then more carefully with dental tools and brushes -- scientists may harden the fossil bones with a chemical solution. A complete covering of burlap and plaster bandages protects the fossil from damage during shipment to the laboratory. Detailed drawings, photographs, and documentation accompany each step of the operation to help reconstruct the fossil for study and exhibition.
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AAA "Gem": AAA considers this location to be a "must see" point of interest. To see pictures of other areas that AAA considers to be Gems, click here.
Wikipedia Description: Painted Desert, Arizona
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Painted Desert is the name for a broad area of colorful badlands located in Northern Arizona in the United States. The desert stretches from the Grand Canyon National Park into the Petrified Forest National Park and runs roughly astride and just north of the Little Colorado and the Puerco Rivers. The area within the Petrified Forest National Wilderness is also known as the Painted Desert Wilderness. Much of the Painted Desert region is located within the Navajo Nation. The region is also home to a number of county parks such as the Little Painted Desert County Park found just north of Winslow. The Navajo and the Hopi people have lived in the region for at least one thousand years, however the modern name for the desert comes from the Spaniards who named it "el Desierto Pintado" due to its brightly colored landscape.

The desert comprises stratified layers of mineral and decayed organic matter. Many hardened dunes can be found. These hardened dunes are visually distinct due to the bands of grays, reds, oranges and yellows which are then shaped by natural wind and rain patterns. The area is noted to be especially beautiful at sunset and sunrise when the land appears to glow in hues of violet, blue, red and gold. Other key features include the many mesas and buttes that rise sharply from the desert floor. Sparse desert flora and fauna can also be found.

In the southern portions of the desert the remains of a Triassic Era coniferous forest have fossilized over millions of years. Wind, water and soil erosion continue to change the face of the landscape by shifting sediment and exposing layers of the Chinle Formation. An assortment of fossilized prehistoric plants and animals are found in the region, as well as dinosaur tracks and the evidence of early human habitation.

Much of the region is accessible only by foot or unpaved road though major highways and paved roads cut across the area. Depending ...More...
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Directly Related Pages: Other pages with content (AZ -- Petrified Forest Natl Park -- Painted Desert) directly related to this one: [Display ALL photos on one page]:
- 1965_AZ_Painted: AZ -- Petrified Forest Natl Park -- Painted Desert (3 photos from 1965)
Generally-Related Pages: Other pages with content (AZ -- Petrified Forest Natl Park) somewhat related to this one: [Display ALL photos on one page]:
- 1965_AZ_Petrified: AZ -- Petrified Forest Natl Park (2 photos from 1965)
- 2006_AZ_Petrified_Terrain: AZ -- Petrified Forest Natl Park -- Terrain (46 photos from 2006)
- 2006_AZ_Petrified_Main: AZ -- Petrified Forest Natl Park -- Rocks and Main (59 photos from 2006)
- 2006_AZ_Petrified_Animals: AZ -- Petrified Forest Natl Park -- Animals (7 photos from 2006)
- 2000_AZ_Petrified: AZ -- Petrified Forest Natl Park (211 photos from 2000)
Same Subject: Click on this link to see coverage of items having the same subject: [Natural Beauty] [Park (National Park Service)]
2006 photos: Equipment this year: I was using all six Fuji cameras at various times -- an S602Zoom, two S7000s,a S5200, an S9000, and an S9100. The majority of pictures this year were taken with the S9000. I have to say, the S7000s was the best camera I've used up to this point.. Trips this year: Florida (two separate trips including Lotusphere and taking care of mom), three weeks out west (including Yellowstone), Williamsburg, San Diego (comic book convention), and Georgia. Number of photos taken this year: 183,000.
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