Petrified Wood

Pieces of petrified wood found at the Wishbone Hill escarpment just north of here, along with fossilized plant types, show that this region had warm, subtropical temperatures 55 million years ago. The petrified forests in this area are among the world's largest and best preserved, with dozens of standing petrified trees surrounded by fossils of flowers, seeds, cones, needles, and leaves. Upright petrified tree trunks are unusual, and it is even more unusual to find them with their fossilized leaves. The petrified trees were dawn redwoods (Metasequoia), related to the redwoods of California, and they grew to giant proportions.

Lazy Mountain, Alaska · United States