Petrified Forest National Monument Arizona

Petrified Forest National Park in Northeast Arizona was set aside in 1906 by Pres. Theodore Roosevelt to protect the scientifically important Mesozoic forests. With a boundary encompassing 225,000 acres, the park protects not only the largest and most colorful deposits of petrified wood in the world but also significant archeological and ecological resources and other important fossils, like the oldest dinosaurs in North America. The park has been a crossroads for travelers and a destination for scientists, including Albert Einstein and John Muir. As a work site of the Civilian Conservation Corps, the only national park crossed by the famous Route 66, and a centerpiece of the National Park Service's Mission 66 initiative, Petrified Forest National Park has a history that rivals that of more familiar national parks.

"Petrified Forest National Monument, Arizona" by Dama Margaret Smith is an informative guide to one of nature's wonders, the Petrified Forest National Monument in Arizona. Smith's book provides readers with insights into the geology, paleontology, and natural beauty of the area, known for its stunning petrified wood and unique landscapes. The book serves as an educational companion for those visiting the monument and a window into the marvels of this natural treasure. "Petrified Forest National Monument, Arizona" is a valuable resource for nature enthusiasts and travelers seeking to explore the geological wonders of the American Southwest.

Yellowstone, Yosemite, the Grand Canyon--a few American national parks enjoy amusement-park status, eclipsing many other beautiful and significant parks due to their heavy political support and spectacular sights. Visitors to Petrified Forest National Park in northeastern Arizona can escape from the litter, snack bars, and crowds of the recreational parks to a 200-million-year-old ecosystem locked in stone. Enhanced by the unrivaled, colorful beauty of the adjacent Painted Desert, Petrified Forest National Park has captivated visitors since the area was discovered by early explorers. The history of the huge fossilized forest parallels that of Arizona. It was discovered and looted by adventurers and largely ignored by the government until President Theodore Roosevelt made it a national monument in 1906. The forest's location along Route 66 brought a large number of visitors during the time it enjoyed only monument status, but lack of funding for protection allowed much damage and theft of fossilized wood. Petrified Forest National Park: A Wilderness Bound in Time speeds the reader on an ancient ecological journey, from the time of dinosaurs to the discovery of their Triassic fossils and on through a century of political maneuvering to create a place for the forest in American history. George Lubick describes how a dedicated few understood the environmental importance as well as the unique beauty of the park's Triassic Chinle Formation and the Painted Desert. Nearly a million people "visit the Triassic" annually; this environmental history of the ancient forest is important for those who know the park as well as those interested in natural America. Petrified Forest National Park is one of the few complete histories of any national park, a well-told, balanced treatment of the environmental, political, and historical factors that shape America's natural history.

Excerpt from Petrified Forest, National Monument, Arizona An Appreciation of The Petrified Forest of Arizona By Chas. F.Lummis Author of Some Strange Corners of Our Country, The Land of Poco Tiempo, Pueblo Indian Folk Stories, etc. Written Especially for the United States Railroad Administration Full fathom five thy father lies; Of his bones are coral made; Those are pearls that were his eyes; Nothing of him that doth fade, But doth suffer a sea-change Into something rich and strange. The Tempest. Sequoia in California is the oldest creature alive. It had measured a millennium when Christ walked the earth. But thats no time at all. Ten thousand ages before the cedars bloomed on Lebanon, away out here in the Wonderland of our own Southwest, the Wind, that grand old harper, smote His thunder-harp of pines identical pines that are with us to this day. Not, indeed, as they were in that incalculable Past for they have Put on Immortality, and are this side of Resurrection. They lived their green millenniums, and were laid to bed under the coverlet of a continent, to sleep ten times as long as Parasite Man has crawled upon this globe. And since, for as many aeons, the tireless moths of Erosion have been gnawing away their league-thick blankets, till at last they are bared again to the Arizona sun the most imperishable of earthly things, and of fadeless beauty; a Forest in Glorified Stone, its very bark and rings immortalized in agate. Not as that classic Munchausen of the Grand Canyon, Capn John Hance, loved to tell. A forest of petrified trees, with petrified birds flying through petrified air, singing petrified songs but prostrate and unmurmuring trunks upon a stark desert bed. How great was once this grove of giant conifers and willow-kind, no man will ever know nor how much is still buried, where ancient lava flows have pinned its sedimentary blankets down. Some 400,000 acres of it are uncovered in extent and beauty the noblest petrified forest in the world. Only the diamond is harder than its wood; only the opal so rainbowed. Some cosmic cataclysm mowed it down, orderly and at a scythe-swing. Not cyclone nor freshet Noahs flood turned against it could not have felled it so fair. It is no tangle of windfall or flotsam. Swath by swath it fell, its lofty tops generally to the south. Perhaps a far vaster earthquake than later split the Mogollon plateau to the beginnings of the Grand Canyon was the agent. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.