The Painted Desert

We visited this on our way from Santa Fe to the Grand Canyon.  It is basically an area of badlands where erosion has sculpted a landscape of conical hills and sheer canyons.  The colours are amazingly vivid, even in the middle of the day.  They are created by all the different minerals in the rock, iron oxide being predominate.

    Us at the beginning of the Painted Desert National Park.  It was extremely hot and dry, so we were grateful that you can drive through the park with short forays out to see the sights.

    A view of the beautiful colours in the desert.

    Another view, showing one of the conical hills.  There is a whole area of these called the teepees.  Like in the Dakota badlands, there are a lot of fossils being uncovered by the erosion.  A lot of paleontological digs take place here, especially in the badly eroded teepees area.

The Petrified Forest

After driving through the Painted Desert, we came upon these amazing petrified logs.  They lie all over the ground through quite a large area of the desert.  In some places, you can see where they are being eroded out of the ground and then toppling down the hills.

    Large petrified log.  There are large fines imposed on anyone removing petrified wood from the area.  In the past, tons of the logs were removed by souvenir hunters and others.

    Detail of a log.

    More detail of a log, showing how the wood has become crystalised.