Monday, March 13, 2023

Exploring the "Petrified Forest"

 I've posted about this area in New Mexico where there are petrified logs and large and small fragments of such. But two friends of ours Alan and Sam had never been there and Alan is a geologist by profession and was interested in exploring a bit. This area of the dessert was once a lush forest. Climate change is not a new thing.

The area is not easy to get to. It is a good half hour on secondary dirt roads from the main dirt road where the gate is maintained by the Bureau of Land Management. 

This is one of the many areas that Park Ranger hubby has to patrol; mainly doing such chores as checking counters, repairing barbed wire fences and placing new signage as needed. He gets to see interesting areas that most people don't even know about. There is a place where thousands of shark teeth are part of the geologic deposit. And supposedly there's a mastodon skeleton somewhere "out there".

It was a gorgeous late winter day and very comfortable to be out hiking. And best of all: No crowds. Actually we were the only ones  there.

Alan and Sam and Leon in the background

The largest petrified log




Cute little cactus growing in the rock


It was a very bumpy ride in the Ford F250

Some other large chunks of petrified wood


Alan, Leon, Sam


4 comments:

Moving with Mitchell said...

I would absolutely love this, bumpy desert ride and all.

Frank said...

Thank you...finally I got an email notification re: comment waiting. This has not been working for months. I tweaked something in the settings...

Debra She Who Seeks said...

I've seen small pieces of petrified wood (no bigger than an inch or so). Seeing a whole petrified tree trunk would be so awesome! I hope your geologist friend enjoyed the experience!

Russ Manley said...

So you all drove out into the desert to see some morning wood, hard as a rock. Right.

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