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Painted Desert October 18, 2008 |
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"The colorful mesas, buttes, and badlands before you compose a natural work of art - the Painted Desert.
"Wind and running water cut these features from the Chinle Formation deposited over 200 million years ago when this area was a vast inland basin near sea level. The colors arwe due to ancient environmental conditions in which the sediments were originally deposited as well as the type of minerals in the rocks. "Besides being colorful, the Chinle Formation contains a valuable fossile record of late Triassic plants and animals ranging from ferns and shellfish to amphibians and dinosaurs. Members of the scientific community from all over the world come here to study the fossils." -- text of an informational plaque of the National Parks Service, Petrified Forest National Park |
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