This post is a little unusual for me because it is not from just one place or about just one subject. For the past several summers we visited some sites with interesting geology and we realized that there is a common theme here. So why not group them up for my blog? These are some favorite photos of fossils and petrified wood that we came across both in our travels and very close to home.
Joggins Fossil Cliffs
In our travels through Canada last summer we visited the Joggins Fossil Cliffs at the top of the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia. The photo above is of the beach. As you can see, the shore appears at first glance to just be strewn with rocks. But once we took the guided tour, we found that a great number of these rocks contain fossils. In fact, if you are a fossil lover, there are not many places in the world where they are as easy to spot.
Reptile and amphibian fossil specimens from these cliffs made some of the earliest contributions to the science of geology with discoveries in mid 1800s by Sir Charles Lyell and Sir William Dawson. Charles Darwin in On the Origin of Species, cited Joggins as one of the finest fossil records to show the forces of evolution.
Many of these fossils were formed in the great tropical Carboniferous period of about 360-290 million years ago. The high tides at the Bay of Fundy are constantly refreshing the fossil landscape, creating an ever-changing gamut of prehistoric relics.
For these photos I used the excellent Olympus 30mm macro lens. It was great fun and extremely interesting to spot and photograph fossils wherever we walked. I am not going to try to identify them in these photos because I’m just not qualified, but I’m pretty sure the second photo is of fossilized tree bark and the last photo is of a giant horsetail. By selecting an image you will get an enlarged view.
Petrified Forest National Park
In the summer of 2022 we visited Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona. We spent a good part of a day wandering through the park and discovering the story behind these prehistoric trees. The petrified wood here is made up of almost solid quartz. I was fascinated by these ancient tree trunks whose kaleidoscope of colors was formed by minerals such as quartz, iron and manganese. The logs were buried deep in an ancient river about 200 million years ago. Decay was greatly delayed by a lack of oxygen, and over many millennia the minerals crystalized.
Back then, this region of Arizona was located near the equator–about where Costa Rica is today. We lived in Costa Rica for seven years so we joked that we had returned there in our time machine.
I used the Olympus 12-50mm kit lens for most of these photos. The quality is pretty good for a mid-level lens. But I have since replaced it with the 12-45mm f4 pro lens. Because the day was very bright, some of these shots are exposure-stacked to even out the highlights and shadows. Select image for an enlarged view.
Prehistoric Trackways National Monument
At the beginning of 2022 we signed up for a guided tour in the Prehistoric Trackways National Monument in the Robledo Mountains north of our hometown of Las Cruces, New Mexico. The photo above shows a trackway trail overlooking the City of Las Cruces and the Organ Mountains to the east. (The Rio Grande is on the left and doesn’t have any water in it due to our drought.) As you walk along you can see the fossilized footprints of amphibians, reptiles, insects and plants, as well as petrified wood, dating back 250-to-300 million years ago during the Permian Period. In parts of the site up to fifty consecutive prints from individual animals are preserved. There are also tracks from multiple species found together.
However, due in part to theft and damage by tourists, many specimens have been removed to the New Mexico Museum of Natural History. So we were a bit disappointed that we didn’t see some of the most impressive evidence found here. But our guide pointed out many interesting specimens, including the brachiopods shown below, which were so numerous underfoot that the guide called it “the brachiopod sidewalk.”
I was using my Olympus EM-5 Mark II that day with the compact 30mm macro lens. This light-weight setup made it easy to squat way down to get some closeup shots. Select image for an enlarged view.
