The Painted Desert

The Painted Desert (HM1AZJ)

Location: Petrified Forest National Park, AZ 86028 Apache County
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Country: United States of America
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N 35° 3.785', W 109° 48.159'

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Inscription
The Painted Desert stretches before you as an outdoor museum of fossilized plants and animals. Its striking colors emanate from the Chinle Formation of the Late Triassic, which has been eroded by the Little Colorado River drainage system.

An aerial view of the Painted Desert reveals tie-dyed corrugated hills of highly colored sedimentary rock, mostly soft, fine-grained mudstone and claystone. Also present are harder beds of more somber-colored siltstone, sandstone, and conglomerate. The wide range of reddish color in these rocks is due to the presence of iron minerals.

The Chinle Formation is a storehouse of plant and animal fossils that provided evidence of a time when giant amphibians and reptiles ruled the Earth. If you look deep into the Painted Desert, you may see large fragments of petrified wood.
Details
HM NumberHM1AZJ
Tags
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Placed ByPetrified National Forest Services
Marker ConditionNo reports yet
Date Added Monday, September 1st, 2014 at 4:22am PDT -07:00
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Locationbig map
UTM (WGS84 Datum)12S E 609178 N 3880694
Decimal Degrees35.06308333, -109.80265000
Degrees and Decimal MinutesN 35° 3.785', W 109° 48.159'
Degrees, Minutes and Seconds35° 3' 47.10" N, 109° 48' 9.54" W
Driving DirectionsGoogle Maps
Area Code(s)928
Closest Postal AddressAt or near 301-399 Unnamed Road, Petrified Forest National Park AZ 86028, US
Alternative Maps Google Maps, MapQuest, Bing Maps, Yahoo Maps, MSR Maps, OpenCycleMap, MyTopo Maps, OpenStreetMap

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