Pioneers of Paleontology

The fossils here drew scientists long before the park existed. A U.S. Army expedition reported the Black Forest of petrified logs in 1853, and at General Sherman's request two logs went east to the Smithsonian. John Muir camped at nearby Adamana in the early 1900s, collecting fossils and naming some of the forests himself, and in 1921 Annie Alexander turned up early fossil reptiles and amphibians in the Triassic beds. Petrified Forest became a working laboratory where researchers study not only the deep past but the record of how that past was first understood.

What the plaque says

Petrified Forest is a laboratory where scientists study not only the fossil record, but the records of earlier discoveries by naturalists and paleontologists., Interest in the area's fossils goes back to 1853, when a U.S. Army expedition discovered the Black Forest in what would become the park's northern section. Later, at the request of General William Tecumseh Sherman, two petrified logs from that area were acquired for the Smithsonian Institution., Conservationist John Muir collected fossils and named some of the park's forests in the early 1900s, when he was living in nearby Adamana.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Petrified Forest National Park — 4.4 mi
  Two hundred million years turned to stone — and a Route 66 ghost
• Holbrook — 22 mi
  A Santa Fe railroad town once too tough for women and churches, now the seat of Navajo County, gateway to the Petrified Forest, and home to the concrete teepees of the Wigwam Motel.

More markers nearby

• Newspaper Rock Petroglyphs — 1.7 mi
• Summer Solstice Marker — 2.3 mi
• Agate Bridge — 3.7 mi
• The Painted Desert — 8.3 mi