The Wonder of the Forest

In this third episode of our seven-part road trip through Arizona, we explore one of the most unusual national parks in America: Petrified Forest. But this isn’t like any forest you’ve ever seen. Here, giant trees that fell more than 200 million years ago have turned to stone, their insides glowing with reds, purples and yellows and their crystals sparkling in the sun. There are many places in the world where you can see fossils, but this is one of the few where you can actually reach out and touch them. We hike through fire-painted badlands and fields of rainbow-colored logs, uncover 13,000 years of human history carved into the rock, and go behind the scenes with the paleontologists still unearthing creatures from the dawn of the dinosaurs.

Listen to the teaser

Episode highlights

A Forest Turned to Stone

Walk among the fallen giants of the Rainbow Forest on the Giant Logs Trail, home to “Old Faithful,” a petrified log almost ten feet wide at its base. Then follow the Crystal Forest Trail, where quartz glitters along the path like stars in the midday sun.

Into the Painted Desert

Travel the park’s single 28-mile scenic road through badlands striped like candy corn and past the Tepees, cone-shaped hills banded in rust and white.

Back to Time

Travel back more than 200 million years with Dr. Bill Parker, to a time when Arizona lay near the equator and looked more like Costa Rica than desert. Picture towering conifers lining an Amazon-sized river, ferns and cycads underfoot, and not a flower or blade of grass anywhere. Then find out how volcanic ash turned those fallen trees to stone.

Messages in Stone

Discover 13,000 years of human history, from Ice Age spear points made of petrified wood to an ancient pueblo built from it.

A Real-Life Jurassic Park

Go behind the scenes with lead paleontologist Dr. Adam Marsh as he reveals the skull of a Postosuchus, a crocodile relative that looked like a T. rex and ruled this land more than 200 million years ago. It’s one of only a handful ever found.

What’s Latin for Funky Worm?

Find out why paleontologists named the world’s oldest known caecilian after a 1970s funk song, and hear our humble request for the next new species found in the park.

Petrified Forest is a wonder of the world. You’re not going to see another place like this, with the amount of petrified wood, especially the colorful petrified wood, the rainbow wood. It really is a spectacular wonderland.

Dr. Bill Parker, Chief of Science and Resource Management, Petrified Forest National Park