In Arizona, Ada and I were thrilled to find both Kokopelli and petrified wood. If you don’t have time for the Petrified Forest, don’t worry. The stuff is everywhere and how cool is it that trees from the Triassic Period were preserved all this time by Nature for us to marvel at or study (depending on your inclination) today and tomorrow, too?
These trees must have been submerged in water or mud before they deteriorated. The individual cells deteriorated anyway, leaving hollow husks that filled with mineral rich water and when the water evaporated, the minerals hardened in the tree-cells so that now we have rocks that are also trees. I can hardly stand it, it’s so cool!
By the way, the brown color of the tree cells is replaced with whatever color is the predominant color of the mineral that took it’s place. Iron is red, for example. Calcium is white. Some of the trees contain veritable rainbows–shocking color revealed at the slice like a geode!
July 25, 2012
And you have actually touched them. Those woods don’t look wood at all. They’re more like stones. I just wanna see and touch them too.
October 18, 2016
The precious moment of spending time father with his lovely daughter.