Black Hills Petrified Forest

In Greek, the word "petra" means stone and "petrified" means to turn to stone.  Today we visited a very unique and “off the beaten trail” spot to see a petrified cypress forest.  The trip turned out to be so interesting we spent a couple of hours there talking with Scotty, the owner.  West of Rapid City and off of I-90 at South Dakota’s Exit 46 about one mile from the Interstate the earth has preserved a cypress swamp 120 Million years old.  Dating back to the time of dinosaurs when the Black Hills of South Dakota did not exist and the entire area was a flat, tropical swamp similar to cypress swamps that exist now in the southeast.

Cypress trees fell here during that time and became immersed in water.  Then over time sand and silt permeated the open areas of cells making up the tree changing what was once wood eventually to stone.  Then the water receded and the logs were buried in layers of sand.  The now stone logs were buried deeper and deeper by sediment on top of the sand preserving the logs in their stone state.  Eventually, the earth started pushing up the Black Hills and the logs rose with the movement over thousands of years but breaking because of their displacement just as if someone had sawed them into sections.  As time and the elements started wearing away the protective layers above the logs from the hill their resting place had now become, eventually the petrified logs became exposed. Revealing themselves eventually, geologists were able to identify them.  Now they are protected by the owners of this museum in their natural state and in many cases exactly where they fell 120 Million years ago. 

We walked the mile loop through the woods and saw and touched these ancient trees.  The fiber of the wood is still visible in the shape of the stone making up the logs.  A stack of "wood" made up of pieces gathered from other parts of the property truly looked like a cord of wood ready for winter.  In addition to seeing the logs, we watched a very interesting film on the history of the geology of the area, which we carried with us down the road to more fully appreciate what we were seeing in the land around us.  If you are ever in this area, don’t miss this stop.  (note:  everything pictured that looks like wood is in reality stone-the petrified wood.)