December 7, 2018

On Dec. 9, 1962, 56 years ago Sunday, the United States Congress established Petrified Forest National Park, an area with one of the greatest and most colorful concentrations of petrified wood in the world. Located in the Painted Desert in northeastern Arizona, the park contains giant logs of agatized wood (wood petrified into agate) and numerous broken sections and petrified fragments. Visitors can view petrified wood and other park features while hiking the park’s many trails. The park also contains dinosaur fossils and Native American petroglyphs (rock carvings).

These petrified logs at Petrified Forest National Park are about 225 million years old. Credit: © George Burba, Dreamstime

The trees of Petrified Forest National Park grew about 225 million years ago during the Triassic Period, when reptiles became the dominant animals on land and in the sea. Reptiles of the Triassic Period included the first dinosaurs and early large marine reptiles. The trees were buried in mud, sand, or volcanic ash, and turned to stone over time. Today, the park is home to a wide variety of plant and animal life. Cactuses, grasses, lichens, and wildflowers live there, as do many types of birds, lizards, rabbits, and other animals.

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Petrified Forest National Park is located in the Painted Desert in northeastern Arizona. Credit: WORLD BOOK map

People of the Clovis culture first inhabited the area of the park around 13,000 years ago. Fragments of pottery found in the forest show that small groups of farming Indians lived there as early as A.D. 300. Spanish explorers reached the area in the late 1500′s, and American pioneers and homesteaders began settling there in the 1800′s.

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This map shows the locations of the national parks of the United States, which form part of the country’s National Park System. Credit: WORLD BOOK map

U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt created Petrified Forest National Monument in 1906. After becoming a national park in 1962, the Petrified Forest National Wilderness Area was added within the park in 1970. In 2004, the park expanded from 93,533 acres (37,851 hectares) to 218,533 acres (88,437 hectares). Later additions brought the park’s area to 221,390 acres (89,593 hectares).