Petrified Forest National Park

Petrified Forest National Park in northeastern Arizona preserves one of the world's largest concentrations of petrified wood — ancient trees that fell into a river system 225 million years ago, were buried by sediment, and had their wood cells gradually replaced by silica crystal over millennia. The result is logs and fragments of rainbow-colored gemstone — jasper, amethyst, quartz, and agate — scattered across a desert floor that was once a tropical forest. The park encompasses 221,000 acres, including a substantial section of the Painted Desert, whose badlands of pink, purple, red, and blue Chinle Formation siltstones ripple across the northern portion. The northern entrance near Painted Desert Inn provides access to the Painted Desert panoramas — a series of seven overlooks where multilayered badlands stretch to the horizon. The Painted Desert Inn, a National Historic Landmark built in the 1920s and 1930s and expanded in the 1940s, houses murals by Hopi artist Fred Kabotie and is one of the finest examples of Pueblo Revival architecture on Route 66. Puerco Pueblo, 10 miles south of the north entrance, is a 100-room pueblo occupied between 1250 and 1380 AD, with a prominent petroglyph panel including spiral calendar markers aligned to summer solstice sunrise. Crystal Forest, Jasper Forest, and Rainbow Forest in the southern section display the densest concentrations of petrified wood. The Giant Logs Trail, a 0.4-mile loop near Rainbow Forest Museum, passes Old Faithful — the park's largest log at nearly 10 feet in diameter. The park road links both entrances across 28 miles; no petrified wood may be removed under any circumstances, with federal fines up to $325 for violations.