A Forest Turned to Stone

At first glance, the scattered shapes across the desert floor resemble stacks of hay bales, but they are actually ancient petrified logs preserved for more than 200 million years. Captured in Arizona's Petrified Forest National Park, this wide landscape showcases one of the world's largest concentrations of fossilized trees resting among the colorful badlands of the Painted Desert. Native desert vegetation in the foreground adds depth and scale, emphasizing the immense size of this prehistoric landscape where an ancient forest has been transformed into vibrant stone through millions of years of geological change.
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