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com slash Explorer. You're going to be. In Eastern Arizona, rolling hills and mesas and butts sculpt the landscape in a dizzying array. The The red bleeds into pink and maroon, orange mingles with rust, and is ribboned in places by white volcanic ash.

Spiky yuckas add sharp angles to the curvature of the landscape.

This is, in fact, called the painted desert, the northern section of Petrified Forest National

Park. in section of petrified forest national park.

Iron, manganese, and aluminum oxide sediments in the soil

cause the brilliant reds and pinks and oranges

that give the painted desert its name. The heavier the concentration, the more

brilliant the colors. You won't find petrified wood in the painted desert, however,

except at the visitor center where a few logs are on display and small pieces from outside the protected area of the park can be purchased.

Petrified Forest National Park is comprised of two very distinct areas.

In the north, the painted desert provides view after spectacular view of lush red and white hills, green mesas and

plateaus and the scrubby kinds of plants expected in an arid zone.

The geology changes on the road south through the blue mesa with its striations of color punctuated by blue bentonite clay, diminishing foliage, and the first glimpses of petrified logs scattered throughout the badlands.

From the rich warm hues of the painted deserts embrace to the eerie, otherworldly environment of the petrified forest, the park transits the entire color spectrum.

Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet, black and white as well.

It's a visual cornucopia, an entire artist palette painting the shapes, contours, and

textures of this remarkable park, from the macro view of the seemingly endless painted desert landscape

to the micro view of a single disk of petrified wood. I'm Jason Epperson and this is the Americas National Parks podcast. And the On the outside, outside, the petrified trees, which often lie in fairly uniform sized logs

throughout the park don't look that strikingly different from

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