Lybrook Fossil Area
Petrified Forest
Like the De-Na-Zin badlands, there is an enormous amount of petrified wood througout the Lybrook Fossil Area, ranging from small chips to entire trees, including rooted tree trunks. The Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona is the only area in the southwest with a denser concentration of mineralized wood.
Millions of years ago a forest covered the area. At the time a shallow inland sea, the Western Interior Seaway, covered much of New Mexico. The Bisti Badlands was the delta of an ancient river that flowed into the sea. The shoreline was covered in coastal swamps, with lots of foliage and forests, populated by a variety of creatures, big and small. As the Colorado Plateau and Rio Grande rift formed, massive earthquakes and volcanoes reshaped the landscape, entombing the animals and vegetation in layers of mud and ash. Their remains became the fossil fuel that drives the local economy today, fueling the cars we use to get to the badlands and funding the roads to these otherwise inaccessible places. The lure of profit has drawn energy companies ever closer to cultural and historical treasures, like Chaco Canyon, where fracking could do irreparable damage to the remaining structures.
Like the De-Na-Zin badlands, there is an enormous amount of petrified wood througout the Lybrook Fossil Area, ranging from small chips to entire trees, including rooted tree trunks. The Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona is the only area in the southwest with a denser concentration of mineralized wood.
Millions of years ago a forest covered the area. At the time a shallow inland sea, the Western Interior Seaway, covered much of New Mexico. The Bisti Badlands was the delta of an ancient river that flowed into the sea. The shoreline was covered in coastal swamps, with lots of foliage and forests, populated by a variety of creatures, big and small. As the Colorado Plateau and Rio Grande rift formed, massive earthquakes and volcanoes reshaped the landscape, entombing the animals and vegetation in layers of mud and ash. Their remains became the fossil fuel that drives the local economy today, fueling the cars we use to get to the badlands and funding the roads to these otherwise inaccessible places. The lure of profit has drawn energy companies ever closer to cultural and historical treasures, like Chaco Canyon, where fracking could do irreparable damage to the remaining structures.
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