On our way from Santa Fe to Flagstaff we visited two great natural phenominums. The first was Petrified Forest National Park with one of the world's largest and most colorful concentrations of petrified wood, multi-hued badlands of the Painted Desert, historic structures, and displays of over 200-million-year-old fossils. The second natural phenominon was Meteor Crator which is one of the worlds largest preserved meteor crators. It is nearly one mile across, 2.4 miles in circumference and more than 550 feet deep.
The Petrified Forest National Park is drivable and hikable. It is a 28 mile drive that covers both sides of Interstate 40 with around 20 places to stop and see vista points, hike, etc. There was a .8 mile easy hike that Billy and I took but there are more strenuous or longer hikes from 1-3.5 miles. One of the most impressive parts beyond the petrified wood was the change in topography. The colors of the desert went from the vibrant reds and oranges to blue and purple. The purple and blue hues were a result of iron, carbon, and manganese being present in the soil.
The wood becomes fossilized when the mineral silica, dissolved from volcanic ash and hardened into crystalline quartz, replaced 80-90% of the organic wood. Minor minerals, such as iron, manganese, and carbon add the colors.
One of the other great parts of the Petrified Forest National Park were the dwellings and petroglyphs.
Our second stop during the drive Meteor Crator. You can't walk into the crator but we could walk a small portion of the rim where the visitor center was. We arrived just as the sun was setting so the photos were hard to get but the crator was quite impressive.
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