Spent most of our morning and evening doing school work as we needed to catch up on a few things. We finally pulled out of our campsite around 10:00 a.m. Today we spent our day exploring Petrified Forest National Park. What a lovely day we had!
The petrified trees we saw today were alive 225 million years ago, living near the equator! Since then, the continents have shifted to their present positions, the region uplifted, and climate changed. The tall conifers grew along the banks of a tropical floodplain near the equator. Over time they became buried by a mix of silt, mud, and volcanic ash. The sediments cut off oxygen (decay) and the silica-laden (from volcanic ash) groundwater seeped through the logs replacing living tissue with minerals. Eventually the silica crystallized into quartz - petrified logs!
The girls and I were enthralled by what saw today - petrified logs strewn all over the landscape. They were beautiful hues of reds, oranges, and browns. We hiked several trails and drove the scenic drive with the auto tour cd. Tonight we will read my national parks geology book just to review!
Dear VandenBerg Girls,
ReplyDeleteHi! How are you doing? How is the weather? When are you coming back? We miss you. All of the things that you have been doing are awesome. On October 23rd we are going to be making 350 t-shirt bags to give to the community so that we use less plastic! The weather has been unbelievably good here. We hope that you are having a really great time. Thanks for the postcards.
From, Tahsa, Mani, Naria, Mila, Bethany, Jordan, Sammy, Stephen, Aishu, Alyssa, Meagan, and Jessie
PS See you when you get back! Send us another postcard--we love them!