1. By Varsha Kumar

2.  1540 Spanish explorers  1851 American Army  1853 First geologist in park  1883 Railway brought settlers  1899 Destruction of Park by people  1906 National Monument  1962 National Park

3. Petrified National Park was being destroyed and ruined. The wood of petrified national forest was being taken away by people who wanted to sell it. In 10 years more that half of the wood was removed. To protect this beautiful area Petrified National forest became a National Park on December 19 1962.

4. 200 Millions years ago during the Triassic period northern Arizona was not a desert as it was today. It was tropical forest. It had large trees growing along a river. The trees fell into the river and were carried by the rivers. There were so many trees that they were jammed in the river. Volcanic ash covered the logs and buried them. The logs were covered in mud. There was water that filled this area again. The water trickled down though the sand and ash into the wood. The silica in the sand turned the wood into stone. The whole process of being buried in the water, ash and sand took many million years. The earth’s movement caused the logs that were buried to come up to the surface

5. There are mainly only fossils in Petrified Forest. The main fossils are the petrified wood. Petrified wood is a fossil because all of the organic materials have been replaced with minerals. Petrified wood contains mostly iron and copper. The process of petrifaction usually takes 100 million years. The rocks that make up the Blue Mesa and the Painted Desert are sedimentary. The names of them are Mudstones, siltstones, sandstones, shales. The igneous rock that can be found is basalt. Formation of Rocks

6. The Painted Desert and the Blue Mesa one of the most beautiful special features of Petrified National Park. The painted desert shows the soil that was formed millions of years of ago. It shows the soil deposits from the late Triassic period. The painted desert has lot of beautiful colors. Red and Green represents Iron and manganese. Scientists can figure out the amount of water that was present when this soil was formed by looking at the color of the soil. The soil colors show that the area had very dry and wet periods. This is similar to the monsoon in India today The Blue Mesa is about 234 Million years old. It has beautiful colors of grey, blue, purple and green. The Mesa are formed because of wind and water erosion.

7. Through wind erosion more fossils and petrified wood are coming to the surface. Wind erosion will cause the mesas to slowly change form. Older soil will come to the surface and the mesas will finally disappear to because flat areas.

8. The fossils are being stolen by people. This is ruining the park The plants from other places that have invaded the park have no predators. They have taken over the native plants. The prairie grass is disappearing because they are eaten by wild life and have to compete with foreign plants that have no predators.

9. Technology has helped with current research to help understand the mechanism of how the park was formed It has helped to increase security in the park and prevent people from stealing the fossils Technology has improved the ways of educating the public about the park, how it was formed and how to protect it.

10. Petrified National Forest

12.  Uhler, John W. "History." Petrified Forest National Park. Copyright © 1995 - 2004 Page Makers, LLC. Web. 21 Apr. 2010.  Holleran, Patrick. "Painted Desert." Petrified Forest National Park. Shannon Technologies, 1994-2010. Web. 19 Apr. 2010.  Stanley, John. "Triassic Park." Petrified Forest National Park. Copyright ｩ 2010, Azcentral.com, 11 Nov. 2009. Web. 23 Apr. 2010.  Petrified Forest National Park. Petrified Forest National Park. Web. 1 May 2010  Evans, Bob M. "Petrified Wood." National Geographic 12 Feb. 2007. Print..

13.  http://www.petrified.forest.national- park.com/info.htm#his http://www.petrified.forest.national- park.com/info.htm#his  http://www.shannontech.com/ParkVision/Pe tForest/PetForest.html http://www.shannontech.com/ParkVision/Pe tForest/PetForest.html